Her Return
by BuryTheHatchet
Summary: What happens when a wild little girl shows up looking for her father. Set 8 years after the start of season 11. For my reference: 1st NCIS fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Okaydokey. This is kind of inspired by something a friend said about how quickly Tony moved on from Ziva and I kind of agreed so I came up with this. You have to imagine that none of what happened after the other Abigail turned down the job offer Gibbs gave her at the beginning of season 11. I can't remember what episode that was. We are based exactly 8 years after Tony left Ziva in Israel.**

It had been a long week. It had been a long month. It had been a long year. A long decade. Who was he kidding, he missed her. He leaned back in his chair, looking at the picture in his hand. He smiled sadly. Paris. His favourite photo.

"Boss, it's been eight years. Today is always tough on him, I think..."

"McGee." Gibbs looked up at Tim. He had noticed McGee had been looking older recently. Tired. They all had. They had been sharing the work load of four agents between three for eight years. Eight years today. "Do you have any suggestions, because every time we try to get a new agent, they don't work out." He looked over to the empty desk. How many agents had moved in and out of that office space in these past years since she left? He had lost count. None lasted more that a month. "When was the last time that he had a relationship that lasted more than three days?"

"I don't..." Tim said wearily.

"You're tired. Go on, go home. Sleep. I'll call if there are any problems." Gibbs said, looking up as a small cough came from a small girl with dark, wild hair.

"I am looking for Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo." The girl said in a heavily accented voice as Tony literally fell off his chair. She looked up from the photograph she was holding and walked around the side of his desk as he was standing up.

"Nobody but me calls me that." He said, looking at the child with the wild hair and the wild eyes.

"You look older than I thought you would, although I guess it has been a long time since this photograph was taken." She looked back down at the photograph she clutched in her hand and then back to the man in front of her and then down to the photograph in his hand. "However, you have that photo, which I guess means you are who I am looking for."

"Why are you looking for me?" Tony looked down to the photo she was looking at then looked up at the girl. "Ziva? What do you want with her?" Tony said, looking to Gibbs and McGee as they stood silently, watching. "They're training Mossad officers young, you're what, 8?"

"7." She said. "And I am not a Mossad officer, I just want to find my father." She frowned. "My name is Caitlin. My mother is..." She pointed to the photograph. "Ziva David. She told me that I was never to become a Mossad officer."


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey, thanks for all the reviews so far. I have already written a lot of this out already, and some of it is in quite short chapters but I think they actually work better that way. Thank you for reading...**

"What makes you think you'll find your father here?" Gibbs said, walking over and smiling. She looked like her mother. The same hair. Same eyes. Same determination.

"She used to tell me stories when she thought I was asleep." She walked over to the empty desk and sat in the empty chair. "They were all about you, all of you. I was almost asleep but sometimes I could remember bits. You were her friends so I guessed you might know where he is."

"How did you get here?" Tony asked.

"My class is on a field trip here, and I wanted to find you so you can help me find my father." Caitlin bit her lip.

"I'm guessing your teacher doesn't know where you are?" Gibbs smiled.

"I told her I needed the bathroom and then I climbed out of the window and I walked behind where my class was standing."

"Clever." Tony smiled. "I've done that before, although it was for a different reason.

"My mother keeps photographs from when she used to work here in a shoebox underneath her bed. Are you going to phone her?"

"Don't have her number." Gibbs smiled. "Why don't you want her to know that you are here?"

"When I was younger, she used to say that it is not important to have a father when you have a mother who loves you."

"When did you move to America?" McGee asked, looking towards Tony.

"About two years ago. When uncle Shmeil died mother said that we needed to leave Israel." Caitlin spun on the chair that her mother once sat in.

* * *

"She's been here two years, and she hasn't even said hi." Tony said, pouring a cup of coffee and placing a coin in the slot of the vending machine.

"Tony, she wanted to move on." McGee sighed. "When you and Ziva were in Israel, did you... Is there any slight possibility that... Caitlin is just over seven... Could there be a chance that..."

"Spit it out McGeek." Tony snapped, collecting the chocolate bar.

"Could she be yours?" Tim sighed.

"I... There is a possibility. But it was just the once." Tony shrugged.

"Did you... use protection?" McGee asked quietly as they walked back to the squad room.

"It was eight years ago McGeek, how the hell should I remember?" Tony turned on him. "She called her Caitlin. Caitlin. Why would she do that if she wanted to move on."

McGee placed his hand on Tony's shoulder and they watched as Gibbs made a joke and the child laughed. "She has a sense of humour."

"So did Ziva."


	3. Chapter 3

She ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. She knew she should not have let her go on this field trip. She knew that if she had said no she would have been asked why. It was the Navy Yard, possibly the safest place she knew and still her daughter had gone missing. She should have kept her home. Not just ignored the letter. She reached the door to the floor that she needed and pushed through. She was surprised she wasn't out of breath. Four floors, two steps at a time.

She stopped when she saw the three men sat at their desks.

Almost smiled.

Saw Tony.

Smiled.

And then remembered. Caitlin. She ran the last 6 metres to stand where they all stood, every victims' wife or child or killer. "Gibbs." She walked up to his desk, to where she had stood so many times, to tell him about a case, to be yelled at, to be dismissed. "My daughter has been kidnapped and I need you to find her. Please. I will do anything, just find her."

"Hello." Gibbs said, standing up. "Long time, no see."

"Gibbs, please." Ziva cried. "Save her like you saved me."

"I believe last time you were saved by one of us it was actually by me." Tony said as he stood next to her.

"Tony. I am sorry. For everything, but I must find my daughter." She turned back to Gibbs.

"Is she always like this?" Tony asked somebody sat behind her.

"Yes, but never this bad." Ziva whirled around as her daughter's voice hit her ears to see the girl, who reminded her of her self so much it scared her, sat with her feet on the desk holding a disposable coffee cup and a chocolate bar.

"What were you thinking, just disappearing like that?! Don't ever do that again, do you understand?!" Ziva started yelling, switching into Hebrew when she noticed that everybody was listening to her.

"Hey." Gibbs slapped the back of her head. "Shouting gets you nowhere."

"Gibbs, this is no business of yours." Ziva said, turning to her old mentor.

"She came he looking for Tony's help." Gibbs steered her away from where her daughter sat silently crying. "She wants to find her father. I think she has the right to know who he is at least, don't you?"

"No." Ziva said. "I would have faired much better had I not known my father, and fewer people would have died." She hissed.

"Just because you would have been better, does that mean she would?" Gibbs nodded towards Caitlin as Tony wiped her tears away. "'Cause the way I see it, the only way she could be worse off is if her father is an officer of Mossad. Is that it?"

Ziva looked at Tony and Caitlin. "Eight years. He's probably moved on with his life. I doubt he would want to know."

"You named her Caitlin." Gibbs stated.

"Caitlin Jennifer David." Ziva nodded. "Shmeil told me when I named her that moving on would never work if I gave her American names. I could not resist. It seemed fitting."

"Does her name relate to her father in any way?" McGee asked. "Sorry, I shouldn't have been listening, but..."

"You were interested, I understand." Ziva said.

"They are the two women who allowed you to meet Tony." McGee hypothesised.

"They are also the two women who allowed me to meet you and Gibbs, does that mean one of you is her father?"

"Well, I can't speak for the boss, but I have never slept with you. Ow!" He yelped as Gibbs slapped him around the head. "Sorry boss."

"And what makes you think me and Tony slept together?" Ziva looked at him, standing closely in the way that he remembered her doing to a suspect when she wanted them to talk.

"Well, when you were in Paris you told Abby that you took the couch and Tony told me that he took the couch."

"Paris was a long time before she was conceived. You are lying." Ziva said, moving even closer.

"And Tony kind of told me... earlier today... when I asked him... about his last night in Israel..."

"Better." Ziva said, turning back to watch her daughter and Tony and averting her eyes when they met his.

"So...?" McGee said.

"Maybe later." She sighed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Ok, so I decided that since this one was kind of short I would put it up with the last one. Just make sure you have read chapter three before you read this one. ;)**

"Ziva, why did you think that she had been kidnapped?" Gibbs asked to her turned back.

She inhaled.

Exhaled.

Thought.

Inhaled. Turned around. "This was posted to me a week ago." She placed a cream envelope on his desk.

He picked it up, turned it over in his hands, traced the lettering of her name with his gloved finger, flipped the torn flap up and pulled out the photo. It was of Caitlin, laughing. "Hand-delivered." It was a statement, not a question.

"It is probably nothing." Ziva shrugged and looked at her daughter. "I have taken care of the two of us for a long time."

"This got you scared." He said. "You recognised something about it."

"There was a Mossad officer I worked with once. She was sadistic, truly. She liked to play with her prey before she caught and killed them." Ziva shuddered. "She would send photo's of her targets loved ones to them before kidnapping and torturing the loved ones until the target would give themselves up." She picked up the photo. "I recognised the photography."

"Why didn't you come to us as soon as you received this." Gibbs asked.

"I didn't want to have disappointed you." She sighed. Gibbs shook his head. "Please protect her."

"This isn't a navy case." He looked at her and at Caitlin. "I'll see what I can do, as long as you talk to DiNozzo, tell him what he needs to know."

"Fine." She sighed. "Just keep her safe."

"DiNozzo, McGee, we've got a case." Gibbs called, standing up.

"My bet is on a navy seal, we haven't had one of them in a while." Tony said, grabbing his pack.

"Did I say you were going anywhere, DiNozzo?"

"No boss, I just assumed..."

"You assumed wrong." Gibbs said as the two agents walked over to his desk. "There is a Mossad agent trying to kill Ziva and Caitlin. DiNozzo, you are on protection detail, 24/7. They don't leave your sight."

"Gibbs, that is not necessary." Ziva shook her head.

"Yeah, 'tis, because you just asked me to keep her safe." He pointed to Caitlin. "Got it?"

"Yes." Ziva sighed.

"McGee, I want you to hack into Mossad, find out why they want Ziva dead."

"On it, boss." McGee said, walking back to his desk.

"You're going to hack into Mossad?" Tony whispered to McGee. He knew that McGee was good at hacking, history had proven that, but hacking Mossad wasn't just difficult, it was dangerous.

"You heard him." McGee shrugged. "I am going to hack into Mossad."


	5. Chapter 5

"Gibbs, you said you had something for me." Abby rushed out of the elevator.

"Yeah Abs." He said, waiting for her to calm down. "How many Caf-Pows have you had today?"

"Nine, maybe ten." She smiled. "I've been working on a new technique for..."

"Abby." He cut her off. "I need you to check for fingerprints on this." He handed her the photo and envelope.

"It won't work, Gibbs. I told you, she always wore gloves and never left any trace." Ziva sighed from where she sat with her head on her desk.

"Oh, My God!" Abby said, dropping the Caf-Pow that she held. "Ziva!" She squealed in her usual Abby way and ran over to the desk.

"Hello, Abby." Ziva stood up and allowed herself to be squeezed. "How have you been?"

"I have missed you and so has Tony and Gibbs and McGee and Ducky and all of us. Where did you go?" Abby said, looking at her friend.

"Around." Ziva nodded and smiled. "I have missed you all, too." She said quietly, so only the forensic scientist could hear.

"Are you back for good?" Abby asked, watching Ziva's facial expression.

She looked to Gibbs. "No. I am just getting a little help from my friends."

"We bring food." Tony said, Caitlin trailing behind him.

"Tuna sandwich." The little girl smiled and placed a plate on Ziva's old desk.

"Does this mean that I am forgiven for yelling." Ziva asked as her daughter hugged her.

"Mm-hm." Caitlin nodded. "I am sorry for running away."

"Hi." Abby smiled at the girl.

"Hello. Are you Abby?"

"Did you go through my box of photos?" Ziva asked, her daughter biting her lip in shame. "I am sorry. Maybe we can look at them tonight, yes? I will tell you their stories." She smiled as Caitlin nodded.

"Yeah, I'm Abby. Who are you."

"This is Caitlin. She is my daughter." Ziva smiled proudly.

"Oh my God! You have a daughter!" Abby squealed again, this time attracting the odd looks of a few passing agents.

"Yes, Abby, would it be possible to twist it down a bit." She made the action of twisting a volume dial.

Abby grinned. "Turn. Would it be possible to turn it down. It is good to see that some things never change." She laughed. "Your mum has a tendency to get her words a tad mixed up." She said to Caitlin.

"I do not." She said. "In my defence English is a very difficult language." They laughed.

* * *

"Ziva, talk to him." Gibbs said as they watched McGee, Tony and Caitlin playing catch with a balled up piece of paper.

"He will not talk to me." Ziva said emotionlessly. "And I cannot make him if he does not want to, Gibbs."

"Why didn't you visit?" Gibbs asked. He was truly curious on this point. The Ziva he used to know would have visited, wouldn't she?

"I wanted to move on." She said statically. "I wanted to forget."

"But you haven't moved on, have you. You named your daughter after Caitlin Todd and Jenny Shepard. You still 'train' until your knuckles are bruised." He held up her hand to look at the dark, blotchy marks across her swollen knuckles. "Tony pointed this out to me the first time he saw it, when you were in the car crash. I didn't want to believe that you were beating yourself up this much. I thought it would get better. He yelled and screamed at me, full on temper tantrum, when I said I wouldn't get you to stop. I thought it would when it was all over. I was obviously wrong."

"Gibbs." Ziva sighed, starting to apologise, for what she was unsure of, but she would work that out.

"Ziva, rule six." Gibbs said.

"'Never apologise- It is a sign of weakness.'" She smiled. She had taught Caitlin a set of similar rules. "I changed that rule when I taught it to my daughter." She said absentmindedly.

"Yeah, what to." Gibbs said in the same tone.

"'Only apologise when there is no way on the earth to fix it.'" She said. "Is there a way to fix this?"

"Yeah, there's always a way."


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey, Tony."

"Yes, boss." DiNozzo hurried up to his desk.

"Ziva and Caitlin are staying at yours until we know that they are safe." He said, his tone not allowing for arguments.

"Got it boss." Tony said, swallowing tightly. "Shall we go and pick what they need up now."

"Yeah, take McGee." He said, looking down at the paperwork he had. Ziva rolled her eyes and followed Tony and McGee to the elevator.

"Truthfully, how serious do you think this threat is?" Tony said.

"Bad, Tony." Ziva sighed.

"You'll be fine, both of you." He smiled at her as the elevator doors closed.

* * *

"Okay. Caitlin, I want you to go with Tim and pack a small bag with two changes of clothes, a pair of pyjamas and a toothbrush and toothpaste." Tony said as he crouched down to be at eye level with her. "You and your mum are going to stay with me for a little while, ok?"

"Why?" She asked, her brow furrowing.

"We think there are some bad people trying to hurt your mum. We are going to keep you safe." McGee said, smiling at a picture of Caitlin and Ziva on a beach. The only pictures were of Caitlin and Ziva.

"Okay." She said, taking McGee's hand and pulling him towards a room off of the living room.

"She's adorable." Tony said, following Ziva as she moved to a separate room.

"Yes. She's too open to affection. She want's to please everybody." Ziva sighed, packing a bag.

"Why don't you want her to know who her father is?" He asked as she pulled a shoebox from under the bed and placed it in the bag.

"I don't want her to get hurt."

"Like you were?"

"Yes, Tony. Hurt like I was." She said harshly.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Tony sighed

"No, you shouldn't." Ziva said quietly. "She is yours." She stood looking at him.

"I know. I worked that out." He took her hand and looked at the bruises. "Why do you still do this?"

"Makes me feel better." She said.

"You ready?" He said, dropping her hand and turning away. He was angry, he would admit it. But didn't he have a right to be? Sure he did, she had been in DC for two years and hadn't even bothered to tell him that she was alive. That was all he had wanted to know, that she was fine.

"Yes." She zipped the bag up and slung it over her shoulder.

"Here, I'll take that." DiNozzo tried to take the bag from her.

"I am fine, Tony. I do not need your help."

"Ok." He put his hands up in surrender. "You haven't changed much."

"I do not think that is a complement." Ziva sighed, closing the door as they left the apartment.

"I think it is." Tony smiled at her as he opened the door to the street. "Down, now!" He yelled as a hail of bullets rained on the building front, the glass door shattering over their heads.

"Machine gun fire." Ziva said as the shooting died out. "Caitlin, are you okay?" She asked the child as she clutched McGee's waist, her head buried in his chest as she nodded subtly. "Come on." She pried her daughter away and held her close. "Its ok." She kissed the top of her head.

"I saw a dark green SUV driving past at the time of the shooting." Tony said. "Is this one of your Mossad friend's tactics?"

"No. But then you have not provided any opportunity for her to take Caitlin, so she is resorting to other methods. Mossad taught us to be flexible."

"Yeah, I remember." Tony laughed.

"Tony!" She glared at him as McGee slapped the back of his head.

"Hey, you don't get to hit me McGee!" He cried.

"Now is not the time for your... _humour_." Ziva said. "You deserved that head slap."


	7. Chapter 7

"You still have a single bed." Ziva laughed as she placed Caitlin's bag just inside the doorway to Tony's bedroom. She remembered the last time she had been at his place.

"Well, why change now when there has been even less need for a double bed. Don't fix what isn't broke, as I like to say." Tony shrugged.

"You're sure that she can take your bed? I mean, I can take the sofa and she can take the air mattress if you would prefer." Ziva said, looking towards her daughter as she walked around Tony's large apartment.

"Yeah, I'll take the couch, you can take the air mattress." He smiled. "Does she play?" He nodded towards the piano as Caitlin sat on the stall.

"Yes..." She paused, thinking. "I work at a restaurant, playing piano. It is a high class place, the chef's cousin has a partner restaurant in Israel where Shmeil got me a job. When we moved here they said I could keep my job in the restaurant here. She spends a lot of time there when I rehearse, so I taught her."

"She looks like you." Tony smiled, watching Ziva's face closely as Caitlin played the 'Chinese Dance' from 'The Nutcracker'.

"I know." Ziva said sadly. "I wish she looked more like you."

"Why?"

"Because then I would have had a reminder of you." She swallowed and walked over to where Caitlin sat at the piano. She picked up a framed black and white photograph that was sat on the top of the instrument and smiled. "I said it would look better in black and white."

"I got it reprinted and thought it was too beautiful not to display." Tony said, walking over. "I keep the colour copy in my desk with... certain photos that McGee obviously didn't destroy particularly effectively."

"Why did you keep those of all the photos you have of me?" The Israeli asked. "No, don't answer that." She waved her hands.

"I kept all the photos of you." He said. "The box that you placed in your bag, are they the photos that Caitlin was talking about?"

"Yes."

"Can we look at them?" Caitlin asked, looking up from the music she had been playing.

"Have you been listening to all of that?" Ziva turned to her as she nodded.

"She is most definitely your daughter." Tony said. "Very nosey." He laughed.

"You are Agent DiNosey, I am not snoopy at all." She walked over to her bag and pulled out the box, turning back to Tony and her daughter.

"I'm not...snoopy!" He said, sitting on his couch, leaving room for the other two. Ziva smiled as she pulled the first photo out of the box.

"I got Abby to make a copy when I knew that I had to leave." She handed the photo of a young Tony that she used to keep stuck to the top corner of her computer.

"Ok, and you complained about the photos that I have of you?!"

* * *

"She even sleeps like you." Tony laughed quietly as he carried the sleeping child to the bedroom. "She has that peaceful look that I remember from Paris."

"Is your head always in Paris, Tony?" She asked as he placed their daughter down.

"I just liked that weekend."

"We were working over the weekend. You always hated working on weekends." Ziva said, tucking the covers over Caitlin.

"I was in Paris with a beautiful woman, what could be better?" He smiled.

"Not having to transport a high risk whistle-blower." Ziva smiled.

"Then the government wouldn't have paid for our room." He said, turning the light out and shutting the door to.

"A good point." She sighed.

"Are you going to tell her?" Tony asked as he sat down on the couch where he had laid a blanket and pillow out.

"Do not know." Ziva sat next to him, her posture completely straight, making no effort to touch him.

"She deserves to know who her father is, Ziva." He sighed.

"Are you thinking of her or yourself?" She looked straight ahead, barely acknowledging anything but his words.

"I don't know." the agent rubbed his chin. "Remember when we were undercover, actually undercovers?"

"How could I forget, mon petit pois?" She laughed slightly.

"That was the first time I ever thought about having children. I know you told me not to imagine you pregnant but I did." He sighed, leaning back and watching her closely.

"I know you did."

"Yes, well. I always thought that when I had a child I would be there for them. I would do a better job than my father. Attend all of their school performances and help with their homework." He sighed. "I missed the first eight years of my daughter's life."

"I am sorry, Tony."

"Yeah, well." He sighed. "I'm tired, I can't protect you two if I'm tired." He said, flicking the switch of on the floor lamp behind him as she moved over to the mattress. "Goodnight, Ziva..." he sighed to himself in the same way he had done every night for the past eight years, forgetting she was laying in the same room, and receiving the first reply.

"Goodnight, Tony..."


	8. Chapter 8

**I have been enjoying reading all of everybody's reviews. This one is kind of angry, at least at the beginning. I am sorry about that, but it needed to happen.**

"Tony, this is the women's bathroom." Ziva said as she watched him in the mirror as he locked the main door to the bathroom. They hadn't spoken since last night and they both knew that the argument that was brewing was going to be a big one.

"You always used to come into the men's room uninvited." He said, picking up a bottle of fancy soap. "How come you have really, really expensive soap in here?"

"Because the women here all chop in to buy better soap. What do you want?" Ziva asked, not turning away from the basin.

"'Chip' in, not 'chop'" He sighed.

"Do you not have something better to do than correct my English?"

"I want to know why you didn't tell me." Tony said. "Two years, Ziva! Couldn't you once have come and said hello?!" He yelled at her.

"I sat on a bench outside in the navy yard every lunch since we arrived here!" She yelled back, turning to look at him directly. "I thought you would have moved on!"

"You 'thought I would have moved on!'? What is that supposed to mean?!" He screamed at her.

"It means that I thought that you were stronger than me! I thought you would have filled my place!"

"Are you saying I'm not strong?!" He yelled. "This from the woman who ran away when life started to get tough! This from the woman who was too scared to come and say hello, to tell us she was alive?!"

"I didn't run away!"

"It took me four months of trekking across Africa, Europe and the Middle East to find you. You were running!" Tony screamed, remembering his time looking for her.

"I was trying to protect you, and Gibbs, and McGee, and Abby, and Ducky, and Palmer, and Vance! I was keeping you alive!"

"She's my daughter, Ziva!" He tore into her. "I missed the first eight years of her life! I can't ever get those years back!"

"She's only seven." Ziva corrected quietly.

"I missed your pregnancy with her. That was the first year of her life that I can't get back!" He screamed, slamming his fist down on the surface next to the soap. "You took that away from me!"

"I took nothing away from you! You cannot miss what you never had!"

"Yes, you can! I missed it! I should have had it and I didn't because you wouldn't even send me an email to tell me I was a father!"

"That is unfair! I have not used a computer since I sent that last message to you because it can be traced! I get a new phone every month! If I risked being traceable, I would have endangered my life and your daughter's!"

"Paranoia is not an excuse!" He yelled.

"Is it paranoia that we were shot at yesterday when we were leaving my apartment?!" She cried, biting back the tears that threatened to tumble down her cheeks.

"No." Tony breathed, walking out of the ladies bathroom.

Ziva bit her lip, slipping down the wall and sitting on the floor, ignoring the cascade of tears as they rolled down her cheeks.

* * *

"Tony told me about your fight." Gibbs said as Ziva walked through the place she at one point thought the safest, happiest place in the world, despite all the crime and death.

"I expect he told you only his side of the story." She said, sitting down at her old desk.

"I doubt that, considering some of what he said." Gibbs sighed. "I have a spare room, my door is always unlocked."

"I know." She chuckled slightly. "You really should lock your door."

"Nah," He smiled. "Still the safest building in the area."

"I think that has more to do with the owner. I do not think I have ever met anybody who would want to risk stealing from you." Ziva smiled. "Thank you."

"Any time." He nodded.

"Where is Caitlin?" Ziva asked, standing up.

"Down with Abby and Ducky in the lab." Gibbs nodded. "Tony is getting coffee."

"How is Ducky?" Ziva asked. It had been a while since she had seen the old pathologist.

"Old. Tired. Ducky. He still talks to the dead."

"I should hope so." She laughed.

"Go down and see for yourself." Gibbs shrugged. "He's missed you."

"Apparently everybody has." Ziva sighed. "Do you think it was wrong of me to leave, Gibbs?"

"I think you did what was right for you at the time."

* * *

"Ducky!" Ziva smiled as she walked into Abby's lab.

"Ziva my dear, how have you been?" The Scotsman grinned, walking over and hugging the woman.

"I...have been better." She said, hugging him back.

"I'm sure you have. This must all be very difficult for you." He consoled her.

"Mother, are we staying at Tony's home again tonight?" The seven-year-old ran up and hugged her mother.

"No, Caitlin, we are staying with Gibbs tonight." She smiled, trying to mask her sadness as she lifted her daughter onto Abby's lab stall so their eyes were level.

"Why have you been crying?" The girl traced the tearstains down her mother's face.

"I am just sad, that is all. It is nothing to worry about." She smoothed the curls on her daughters head down. "What have you been doing today?"

"Abby showed me how to use Major Mass Spec." She beamed, her fears about her mother fading instantly.

"Yes? Did you enjoy it?" Ziva asked, smiling. She needed to pick up something from her apartment for Tony but she didn't want to have to talk to anybody about it. She blindly asked Caitlin questions about her day, planning the best way to leave without alerting McGee, Tony or Gibbs' attention.

"Mother, you are not listening to me." Ziva turned back to her daughter.

"Of course I am listening to you, sweetheart, I am just very tired." She smiled. "Will you stay here with Abby for me?" She said, hugging her daughter and kissing the top of her head. "I love you, you know?"

"I know, mother." The little girl gave the same response as she gave every time her mother said those words. As her mother turned away she grabbed her hand. "You are coming back, aren't you?" She said, her voice very small.

"Of course I am coming back. Stay with Abby, don't leave Abby's eyesight." Ziva looked at her daughter one last time and turned to Abby. "Look after her, Abby."

"Where are you going, Ziva?" She asked, her eyes much like those of a puppy about to be abandoned.

"I need to pick something up from home, I won't be gone more than an hour." Ziva inhaled.

"What is so important that it can't wait?" Ducky said, frowning.

"A gift for Tony. It might not be exactly what he wants, but it is as close as he can get." She nodded and walked away, knowing that Abby was almost certainly picking up the phone and hitting speed-dial two. McGee. Gibbs was speed-dial one. She was almost certainly going to tell him that she was leaving and trying to avoid everyone. She ran up the stairs to the lobby of the building and out of the door.

"Where are you going?"

"You are faster than I remember, McGee." Ziva said, walking to her car.

"Thank you, Ziva. I have been going to the gym more." He smiled.

"You were in the lobby when Abby phoned you, were you not?"

He sighed. "Yes... You never answered my question."

"I didn't?" She smiled to herself as she opened the door to her red mini.

"No. I thought you sold this car."

"I did. And then I bought it back. I missed it."

"Again, you didn't answer my question."

"Stop changing the subject then." She smiled as she sat in the car and McGee climbed in the other side.

"I...I...I'm not... Where are you going?"

She sighed and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. "I have videos of Caitlin throughout her childhood. Tony is angry because he missed all of those years, and this might just make it that little bit better. Okay, McGee?"

"Then why didn't you just say that?" Tim asked, holding onto the dashboard as Ziva tore away from the parking space.

"Because I didn't think anybody would understand." She snapped, accelerating harder.

"Ziva... could you just...er...slow...down a...touch..." He groaned as they hit a corner.

"Sorry." She said, easing off of the pedal slightly. "I drive fast when I am angry."

"I remember..." He cringed. "Just a little slower?...Please?"


	9. Chapter 9

**I don't really like this chapter. I don't think it fits right. Anyway, I am running out of chapters that I have already written up, so the rest may be updated less frequently. In other news, I have another NCIS fiction that I have written the first few chapters of and have the timeline all planned out for, since after reading the complete outline for this and all the chapters I have already writen, the friend of mine who sparked the idea said that she didn't like it and so she gave me the plot for another story.**

Ziva nodded to McGee as they stood in the elevator. "Thank you." She smiled slightly. "You know, McGee, I never told how good a friend you are to me."

"Ziva..." He laughed. "You never had to say it. I knew."

"I feel I never said a lot of the things I should have said to the people I should have." She stood in the opposite corner to him.

"Like things you should have said to Tony." He asked, prompting her.

"Just like that." She said. "Feelings are difficult for me, you understand McGee?"

"Yes, Ziva, I understand. It was hard for you, wasn't it, seeing him always on the phone with Jeanne Benoit." He said sympathetically.

"It was harder seeing him hurt over it." She said, remembering the year that she had spent yearning for him and having to watch him go home to someone else every night. The elevator doors opened and they both stepped out.

"Good luck." McGee whispered as he walked passed where she had stopped to watch Tony.

"Thank you." She nodded and swallowed, starting to walk towards Tony's desk.

"Ziva." Tony said, not looking up from the paper on his desk.

"I am sorry for everything I...have put you through." She said, placing the backup drive and discs on his desk.

"What is that?" He said coldly, trying to avoid looking at her but being unable to resist a peek at her eyes.

"That is the first eight years of your daughter's life." She said just as coldly, turning away. "McGee said he would go and pick mine and Caitlin's things up from your apartment when you get home. We are staying at Gibbs' house tonight."

"Probbie!" Tony called and Tim scuttled over. "I'm not going to get home until late, take my keys and pick up Ziva and Caitlin's things." He handed him his house keys and went back to writing the report.

* * *

"You're sure you're ok?" Gibbs asked as Ziva walked into his basement, pausing slightly at the top of the stairs where she had crouched when she shot Ari.

"Yes, I think." She said. "No, I'm not."

"Tony?" He said, looking up from the chair leg he was carving detail into. He sighed when he saw her face. "You wanna talk?"

"No, I do not want to bother you." She said, sitting down on one of the boxes in the corner. "I just... He was not open minded at all!" She said, curling her fists into balls. "Maybe I should have come back here with him. Maybe I should have told him." She sighed.

"Maybe's don't change anything."

"Gibbs, I kept his daughter from him. He hates me."

"Go talk to him."

"He will not talk to me." She sighed.

"Try." Gibbs said. "He's still at the office, go and talk to him."

"Caitlin's asleep upstairs. She'll be okay here?" Ziva asked.

"She'll be fine." Gibbs nodded. "Trust me."


	10. Chapter 10

**Slightly different style today.**

 _Tony placed the first disc in the reader and moved to sit in the tiered seating. He smiled as Ziva's face appeared on the screen._

"This is a very good camera Ziva, my dear." Shmeil's voice said. "How could you afford it?"

"I bought it with the last pay-check I received. I wanted to get you something good for your birthday." She laughed. "So you like it?"

"It is excellent." Ziva grinned at Shmeil and the camera.

"Shmeil, I need to talk to you about something." Her smiled faded. "Without the camera."

"No, I don't want to hear anything that can't be on record, because then I must worry that you are going to be in trouble again and I am getting too old for that." Shmeil said, his smile audible in his voice.

"It is nothing like that, I just don't want to have to talk about it with a camera pointed at me." She said and Shmeil zoomed in on her face. "I really should have given you the camera after I told you." She sighed.

"Oh, my Ziva, what is the problem?"

"Shmeil, I am pregnant." She rubbed her forehead and leaned back on the sofa she was sat on.

"My Ziva is getting married!" Shmeil jumped up and danced around, the camera bouncing up and down in his hand.

"No, Shmeil. There isn't going to be a marriage." She hated having to tell Shmeil this. "The father is in America, he doesn't know."

"Who is it, Ziva." Shmeil sighed. "Is it Tony?"

"Wha...? How did you know?!" She cried.

"I saw the way you looked at him the first time I visited you in your American life."

"I didn't look at him in any way..." She pouted.

"Ziva, of you and your siblings, you were the one who was most passionate." He said.

"No, Tali was more passionate than all of us." Ziva sighed.

"Talia was compassionate, she fell in love every day with everybody. You, my dear, are passionate. You don't fall in love regularly but when you do you fall hard." Shmeil laughed. "I knew from the day you were born you would struggle with something like this."

"How did you know?" She smiled.

"I saw it in your eyes." Shmeil said.

"I do not believe in being able to see things in someone's eyes."

"But I do." They both laughed slightly. "You will be staying here Ziva. I have spare rooms."

"Shmeil, I can look after myself."

"I do not doubt that, I have seen the proof, but I want to look after you." The old man sighed behind the camera. "I have no children, this is the closest I will ever get to helping a daughter in need."

Ziva sighed. "Alright, but if you insist on filming every second of my life I am going to leave."

 _He smiled as the video cut to Ziva, stood in pyjamas, cooking. He always did like her cooking._

"Omelettes?" Shmeil asked as he zoomed in on the frying pan.

She smiled at him. "Would you like some?"

"I don't eat until 5 am. You know that." Shmeil sat down, the camera bouncing slightly in his hand.

"Well, in Adelaide it is lunchtime, is that satisfactory?" Ziva smiled.

"I suppose it will be okay just this once. Are you working tonight?"

"Yes, the restaurant has been busy recently." She smiled, serving the first of the eggs up and passing it over to Shmeil.

"That's your beautiful playing." He grinned.

"No, I don't think so." She chuckled. "Yossi has created a new menu."

"I told you he was a good chef." Shmeil said as he ate the omelette.

"And I believe you." She smiled, moving from behind the central island counter with the hob in order to sit next to Shmeil and revealing a small bump. They sat in silence, eating, for a while until Shmeil put his knife and fork down. "Did I not cook it well?" Ziva asked, frowning.

"You cooked it perfectly." He said.

"Then why have you not finished it?" She asked, the hurt evident on her face.

"Because we need to talk." He sighed. "You must phone Tony."

"Shmeil..." She placed her cutlery down too and rested her head in her hands.

"Ziva, it is going to hurt more if you keep this from him. What are you going to tell the baby when it asks who their father is?"

"I will think about that when the time comes." She sighed. "What if Tony does not want to know."

"I think he will." Shmeil placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I hurt him. Anyway, Tony is good at moving on," She smiled weakly. "I am not so important that he will not have moved on by now. I am sure he has forgotten all about me." She stood up, carrying her more-or-less empty plate to the sink where she ate the last forkful and washed it.

"Ziva, you know that is not true." He sighed again, considering whether to bring up the letter he had received from the NCIS agent the other week concerning Ziva's safety. "He sent me a letter." He finally decided.

"What?" She whipped around from where she had been standing facing the basin.

"He wants to know that you are safe. He cares for you." Shmeil stood up and walked over to her, leaving the camera on the table. "Do not cry." He wiped away her tears. "Why don't you phone him? Or write a letter? E-mail?"

"Because as soon as I tell him he will jump on a plane here and try to find me. I want to move on from that life, I cannot be around death and destruction and pain any more."

"Ziva, they are all parts of life. They cannot help their existence in our lives."

"But they can be avoided. I can play happy pieces on the piano and bring my baby up to be kind and polite and joyful. I can stop grieving and wear colourful clothes."

"Ziva, you have never worn bright, colourful clothes." Shmeil laughed and Ziva chuckled. "Those actions are good steps to being happy, but they cannot erase the sad."

"I just don't want to get hurt anymore." She looked him in the eyes before he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.

"I know, my dear Ziva."

 _Tony tried to dried his eyes as short clips of Ziva and Shmeil flickered by, Ziva's bump growing slightly bigger in each one. He wasn't sure what it was that had made him cry in the first place but once he started he couldn't stop. He had yelled at her so much and he knew that she had been through a lot. He could see how few times she genuinely smiled without Shmeil prompting her. He could see the things that caused her pain, the trip she and Shmeil took to Berlin, the Italian restaurant Shmeil took her to on her birthday. Her expression made his heart shatter. It was like he was watching someone act Ziva's life out in a film, but the performance wasn't great and the actress had not studied the character particularly well. There were errors and mistakes, the way she wore her hair, the way she drank her tea._

"Ziva, you are restless." Shmeil stated as they sat in the restaurant where Ziva played piano. She had started her maternity leave a month ago and would not stop fidgeting.

"The baby is sat uncomfortably." She said plainly, wincing slightly as she shifted in her chair. "Why did you say we had to come out for dinner tonight?" She asked, resisting the urge to make a comment upon the dress that she had been asked to wear. It was blue and itchy and not very practical.

"My cousin's friend wants to talk to me about a book that I wrote a long time ago for a report he is writing." Shmeil smiled, adjusting the way the video camera sat so it could capture the two of them.

"But why do I have to be here?" She sighed, squirming like a bored child.

"Because I am old and when the time comes that I will not be capable of meeting people like this for interviews away from the home, you will need to learn to deal with my friends effectively."

"So you are grooming me to be your own personal assistant." She feigned shock and smiled slightly, wincing again.

"Ziva, are you sure you are alright?" Shmeil frowned. "You look like you are in pain."

"I am...fine." She smiled and nodded. "I just feel slightly...dizzy..." She cradled her head in her hands as she rested her elbows on the table.

"Ziva...Ziva..." Shmeil said as his friend's eyes began to unfocus.

 _The camera screen went black as it was knocked off of the table. Tony jumped up as if he could do something to help. The screen flickered back on to point at a hospital bed with Ziva sleeping in it._

"Mmmn...Tony..." Ziva murmured, her eyes flickering.

"Ziva, my dear." Shmeil said, his hand appearing on the screen when he placed it on her shoulder. "Would you like me to call a nurse?"

"No." She said quietly and shook her head.

"Would you like to see your daughter?" He asked softly.

"I have a daughter?" She smiled, trying to sit up and failing.

"A little baby girl. She reminds me of you when you were born. She has a lot of fight in her." Shmeil placed the camera on the table by the bed.

"How did you get the camera in here?" She asked.

"I snuck it in in my dinner jacket. I told them that I was a respectable man and a respectable man should not have to be searched when his closest friend has gone into labour." He smiled, cradling the tiny infant in his arms as he carried her over. "She is beautiful."

"Of course she is." Ziva smiled, managing to sit up and cradling the small infant in her arms. "She is perfect."

"Have you considered names?" He asked, stroking the child's head.

"Yes, but you will not like them." She didn't remove her eyes from her daughter.

"I will like what ever you chose, she is your daughter." He smiled.

"If Ari had not killed Kate, I would not have gone to America and met Tony, and if I had not been friends with Jenny then she would not have let me back to NCIS and I would never have stayed with Tony."

"So you are going to call her Kate Jenny David. I like it."

"No, Caitlin Jennifer." Ziva smiled.

"Ziva, it's a lovely name, but I don't think it will help you move on if you name her after Americans." He bit his lip.

"Shmeil, my mind is made up. This is what I want to call her."

"Ok. I understand, even if I do not agree." Shmeil sighed. "Once your mind is set, there is no changing it."

"She is beautiful." Ziva smiled, kissing the top of her head. "My beautiful baby girl."

 _Tony sat and cried. She was so small, so tiny. He laughed at himself. He was a grown man crying like a baby. Only Ziva could make him cry like this. He sat in silence as the first disc ended._


	11. Chapter 11

**I really enjoyed reading the comments on the last chapter. This is the last pre-written chapter that I have, so the rest might take a bit longer. Sorry.**

 _"Welcome home, Caitlin." Ziva whispered and smiled as Shmeil unlocked the front door to his large house. "I have been wondering for a time now, Shmeil, why you insist on living beside the beach and having a swimming pool in your house when you do not like sand or to swim?"_

 _"Why do I insist on staying in Israel when I do not like sand?" He said in reply. "The answer is because I have always lived by the beach and had a swimming pool in the house." He smiled._

 _"A creature of habit." Ziva smiled._

 _"And anyway, cleaning the pool gives me something to do with my spare time." He chuckled and placed the car seat down by the door. "I finished building her crib when I came home last night. It was surprisingly difficult to follow the directions." He laughed._

 _"Thank you, Shmeil." She kissed the top of his head. "I am grateful for all you are doing for me."_

 _"It is my pleasure, Ziva." He said._

Tony smiled at the image of his daughter. It still felt odd, the idea that he had a daughter. "It felt good to get back home after my extended stay in the hospital with her." Ziva said, sitting in the chair next to him.

"What happened?" He asked, muting the sound on the video and watching the images of the baby girl and her mother flickering by.

"I don't know, Shmeil told me that the doctors told him a jumble of long words that he didn't understand. I didn't want to ask. I know I had an emergency caesarian section." She said as a clip of Ziva and Caitlin at about six months old, sat on the beach in swimsuits. Tony could see a large scar across her stomach. "I still have the scar." She swallowed.

"I yelled at you for making me miss the birth of my daughter, but you missed it too." He said quietly.

"But mine could not have been helped." Ziva smiled softly. "That is the point." She looked at the screen where Caitlin was taking her first steps.

"She is a beautiful child." Tony said as an image of Caitlin came on the screen laughing, her dark, curly hair bouncing. "Just like her mother. What is that, why does she call you 'Mother' why not 'mum' like a normal seven year old?"

"It was Shmeil." She laughed. "She started calling me it when she could talk."

"It's quaint." He said quietly. "Tell me, if you didn't use computers, how did you get these onto discs?"

"Shmeil had a friend much like McGee, he wrote a program to keep sneaky people out, but it only worked with things within Israel. Anything coming in and going out further than that and it was unprotected. He used to be Mossad, too. It only ran on his computer."

"How could you know you could trust him?" Tony frowned.

"His wife and son were killed when he was on an undercover operation. That was when he resigned. I have known him for a long time. He does not trust Mossad either."

"I'm sorry." Tony said, covering her hand with his.

"It is not your fault." She looked at him, turning her hand over and entwining her fingers with him. "You know, every day, when I sat on the bench outside this building, I wished that you would just walk past and smiled. I waited, not for you to recognise me, just to see your smile and it hurt so much leaving that bench every day without even a glimpse." She wiped the tears away with the hand that wasn't locked with his.

"Come on." He said, standing up and hitting the stop button.

"What, Tony?" She said. She recognised the look in his eyes but couldn't place it. He tapped a few keys and walked back over to her, making her stand and walk to the empty area of the room.

"Let's dance." He said, pointing the remote and allowing the room to flood with Elvis Presley. Always On My Mind. He thought it was appropriate.

"The last time we danced Caitlin happened." She smiled through her tears.

"What a night." He whispered into her ear before he began to sing along. Badly.

"Tony, if you want me to keep dancing, I would stop singing." She laughed. She hadn't felt so...carefree since, well, the last time she danced with him.

"I think I could settle with that." He looked at her and kissed her forehead. "I really have missed you. I can guarantee that I have missed you more than everybody else added together."

"Including Abby, because thats..." She shook her head and smiled.

"Ok, maybe not everyone including Abby, but I definitely beat her."

"If you say so." She leaned her head on his chest, allowing him to move to the music.

"How'd you get into this locked room? You don't have any security clearance any more."

"McGee." She smiled.

"Of course."


	12. Chapter 12

**This one is slightly shorter than the last few.**

"How do I tell my daughter that the man she enlisted to help her find her father is actually her father?" Ziva asked as she lay on the table in Abby's lab. "Abby, you did clean this before I laid down, didn't you?"

"Sure." Abby smiled as she loomed over her friend.

"Why is lying down going to help me when you are not a shrimp?" Ziva asked, staring at the ceiling.

"Shrink, Ziva. They are called shrinks." Abby sighed. "When I was a kid I went to see a shrink one time and I found that lying on the couch was more helpful than actually talking to the guy." Abby grinned.

"Your table is not a couch, Abby." Ziva sat up and yawned.

"Tired?" Abby grinned.

"What are you insinuating?"

"Gibbs said you got home late from seeing DiNozzo last night."

"We talked, danced." Ziva shook her head. "Nothing more."

"Did you want anything more?" The Goth asked.

"I do not know Abby!" She said. "Just seeing him again…I mean…I have missed him so much…" She shook her head and sighed. "Stop grinning."

"Why don't you just let what ever it is with Tony run its course, if it goes on to something else then it does, if it doesn't then it doesn't. Don't force anything." Abby shrugged.

"Sometimes I have no idea what you mean when you talk." Ziva said.

"Yeah, we all have that problem." Tony said as he walked in.

"Tony!" The two women whirled around.

"You were talking about me, weren't you?" He grinned.

"No." "How did you know?" Abby and Ziva replied simultaneously.

"How are you?" He asked Ziva, smiling.

"Fine, thank you." She nodded. "How is Caitlin?"

"She's up with Gibbs, they get along really well." He laughed.

"Yeah, well, he always did get on better with children." Abby grinned. "Did you come down for something in particular?"

"Gibbs wants to know whether you managed to pull any prints from the photo?"

"No, but I did find traces of lycopodium powder."

"Yes, because of cause I know what lycopodium powder is, but I need it in simplified terms to tell Gibbs."

"Used to coat latex gloves, DiNozzo!" Gibbs said, slapping the agent on the head as he walked past.

"Among other things, yes." She smiled. "Hey!" She high fived Caitlin.

"Hello, Abby."

"How his my favourite little girl today?"

"I want to go to the beach." She bounced up and down.

"Ooh, I think that would be really cool, a team trip to the beach! Oh Gibbs, can we can we can we?" Abby jumped up and down.

"No, Abs." He looked at her.

"Oh, but Gibbs! It would be so fun, we could swim and build sandcastles and lay on the beach and fly kites and have a picnic!" She pouted at his expression. "Not fair, Gibbs."

"Life isn't fair, Abs." He sighed, looking at Ziva.

"Well, that much we've worked out." Tony sighed, wincing as Ziva and Gibbs both hit the back of his head. "I guess I deserved that."


	13. Chapter 13

**I really don't know how long this is going to be. I was thinking that it was only going to last maybe 15 chapters. It was supposed to be short, but I have got a lot more than that planned out, so it might just be slightly longer.**

Ziva smiled as she watched Tony and Caitlin play Battleships. Caitlin was winning. Tony's sound effects were pretty impressive, though. "Ziva, what haven't you told us?" Gibbs asked from behind her.

"I do not know what you mean." She said, not looking at him.

"Why does this Mossad officer want you dead?"

"I do not know." She shrugged.

"I think you do. McGee hacked into Mossad and there were no official orders, nothing unofficial that he can find either, so why is she hunting you?"

Ziva sighed and walked to the elevator, waiting for the doors to close behind them before she hit the stop button. "She fell in love with a presumed terrorist." Ziva looked at him. "When I was in Mossad, long before I came here, I was the one who provided the information that led to his interrogation, and his consequent execution."

"So she holds you responsible?" Gibbs raised his eyebrows.

"I am responsible, Gibbs." She ran her hand through her hair. "She wants revenge."

"Why now?" He asked.

"Now is when she found me. Before my father died, I was under a reasonable amount of protection from him; she knew that he would slaughter anybody who killed me. Shmeil, although not a fan of Mossad, was a useful tool to them; since it was reasonably public information that he was protecting me, she would have risked too much by harming Caitlin or me. When he died, we came here. It was safer."

"And now she has found you." Gibbs sighed.

"Yes, Miri Tayeb. I believe she left Mossad when I left Israel. She probably keeps her ear to the hound."

"Ground." Gibbs said, flicking the on switch.

"What?"

"Ear to the ground. Not hound." He said, smiling slightly.

"Oh. I was wondering why listening to a big dog would have helped her." She frowned and walked over to her daughter, kissing the top of her head.

"I won." Caitlin grinned.

"Did you now!" Ziva laughed. "You have lost your touch, Tony."

"I have not!" He said, standing up and walking away from his desk. "I'm just a little rusty. It's been a while since I played, you know, I've been acting a lot more grown up, not playing so many games."

"Not true, DiNozzo, you were playing space invaders two weeks ago." Gibbs said, hitting the back of Tony's head as he walked past.

"Yes boss, of course boss, it won't happen again boss." He rubbed the back of his head.

"DiNozzo!"

"Yes, boss?"

"You done any work today?"

"Er, yes, I, er…no boss, I haven't."

"Didn't think so." Gibbs sat down and looked at the idle agent. "You gonna do any?"

"I'm thinking about it." He said, sitting down. "On it, boss." He nodded after looking at Gibbs' face. "What exactly is it that I am on?

* * *

"Hey." Tony smiled as Ziva crept into MTAC and sat next to him. "McGee let you in here again?"

"It is becoming a habit of his." She smiled.

"You know, you could get into a lot of trouble for being in here."

"So could you, for watching personal videos using government property."

"I don't think anyone will mind." He smiled, watching as his daughter took her first steps. He looked to Ziva. She reminded him more of how she looked when he first met her than when she left America. Her hair was wild and untamed; he hadn't seen her wear makeup since her return. She was wearing tan cargo pants and a green t-shirt, but then she had always dressed in a similar way. Then he noticed something that hadn't occurred to him so far. "You're wearing your star." He pointed to the necklace.

"Shmeil bought me a new one. It was a birthday present." She touched the fine gold chain that hung around her neck. The star was smaller than her last one, Tony noticed, more discreet.

"I still have the one you gave to me: I keep it in my desk draw along with photos of you." He smiled. "That sounded really creepy."

"Yes." She nodded and laughed slightly.

"I didn't mean for it to sound creepy." He assured her. They sat silently, watching one-another whilst both pretending to watch the video of Caitlin growing up.

"Tony, I want to tell Caitlin about her father." Ziva said finally.

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"I am not certain on that part yet. I just think that it will benefit all partners."

"Parties."

"No, Tony, I do not think throwing a party is the correct method to tell her."

"No, it will benefit all parties, not partners." He shook his head. "That 'quirk' might just be the thing I missed most about you." He murmured more to himself than anyone else.

"Really? I always thought that my inability to get your American words and phrases correct annoyed you. I hated getting them wrong." She frowned, remembering his annoyance at her on many occasions.

"Yes, but English is so dull without your Ziva-isms." He smiled. "And I kind of think they are endearing, in a strange way."

"I missed talking." Ziva sighed.

"You talked a lot in the videos."

"Yes, but it was not the same as talking to you." She shrugged.

"Tell me why, it may come in handy." He grinned.

"I do not know why." She turned back to the screen. "What do you regret?"

"Spilling Gibbs' coffee. Not being more aware of my surroundings when talking about him. Falling asleep at my desk. So many things." He laughed, knowing that that was not really what she meant. "Honestly? I regret not trying harder to make you come home with me. I regret not trying to find you again. I regret not telling you sooner."

"Telling me what?" She asked, frowning.

"How much I needed you."

Needed. He said needed. Not needs. Needed. Past tense. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. "I must go. It is late and Caitlin is probably asleep in Gibbs desk chair." She stood up and walked out of MTAC, leaving Tony stunned. He couldn't figure what it was that he had said that seemed to upset her so much. He frowned. He thought he had said the right thing. He hit the off button on the disk player and walked out of the dark room, heading for the basement room that was always surprisingly brighter than one would expect, although, he thought, that might just be Abby's personality.

"Boo." He whispered in her ear, making her jump. He grinned, looking at McGee, his head resting on the counter top as he slept.

"Tony!" She hissed, trying not to wake Tim up.

"Ok, so me and Ziva were talking and she asked me what I regret."

"Oh, Tony, did you make a joke about it?" Abby shook her head.

"No! Well I might have, but I then said that I regretted not trying to make her stay and not coming and finding her and she seemed fine with that."

"So what's the problem?"

"Well then I said I regretted not telling her how much I needed her."

"And that upset her?" Abby guessed.

"Yeah, and I don't get what it was that I said."

"What were your exact words?"

"I said 'I regret not telling you sooner.' and she said 'Telling me what?' and I said 'How much I needed you.'" He looked at the Goth.

"Needed?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" He frowned.

"Well now she probably thinks that you have moved on, that you don't need her any more."

"That's not what I meant!" DiNozzo shouted, waking McGee up and making him fall off of his lab stool.

"But that is what you said."

"McGee, is that really what I said?" He looked at the tired face of his co-worker and relayed the conversation to him, waiting for the decision to be made.

"I don't think that is what you meant, but I can see how someone might misinterpret it." He shrugged.

"Only a women could read into it like that." He shook his head, receiving a Gibbs slap from Abby.

"'Women' is an unacceptable generalisation." She stormed over to her desk and hit the lock button on the sliding door.

"I am having so many problems with women today. I don't know what it is. I think my DiNozzo magic has run out." He said to Tim, his face a portrait of confusion.

"I think you have always had this effect on women, just most of the ones you talk to are to naïve to understand what it is they're feeling."

"Probie, when was it that we became so honest with one another that we would talk like this?" Tony said kindly.

"I don't know…" He hesitated.

"I don't like it." Tony snapped.

"Ok. But just remember, the next time you need my help, you can't count on me being honest." Tim walked over to the glass door, smiling at Abby when she let him in. Tony shook his head and walked to the elevator, riding it to the squad room and walking over to his desk. He sat down and opened the draw, moving the pictures of Ziva and removing the gold chain that had sat in his desk for eight years. He needed to make it better. He dropped the necklace into his pocket and flicked the light out on his desk.


	14. Chapter 14

**Short and sweet.**

"Goodnight, sweetheart." Ziva kissed Caitlin's forehead as she tucked her in.

"Mother, will you not tell me who my father is because you did not love him?" She asked, pulling the covers up to her chin.

"No, that is not it." She smiled sadly. "I love him very much."

"You still love him?" The child asked, playing with a strand of her mother's dark hair.

"Very much."

"Then why?"

Ziva sighed and shook her head. "It is very complicated."

"Does he love somebody else?" She asked sympathetically.

"Who made you so wise on the topic of love?" Ziva asked, chuckling to herself and shaking her head.

"Nobody." She said sleepily. "You did not answer my question."

"You are a very clever little girl. My beautiful, clever little girl." Ziva kissed her forehead again and then her nose. "I promise that when I am ready to tell you, I will. But for now, it is time for you to sleep."

"Goodnight, mother."

"Goodnight, Caitlin. Sleep well." She hit the light switch and left the door ajar.

"You are a good mother, Ziva." Gibbs said from where he had been stood, watching.

"I could do better." She sighed, walking down the stairs into Gibbs' living room.

"Yeah, so could every parent. Nobody is perfect." He shrugged. "You are a single mother. You have done very well, give yourself some credit."

"The problem is that I shouldn't be a single mother. I could have come back here, she could have had a father, Tony could have had a daughter."

"Caitlin still has a father, and Tony still has a daughter." Gibbs looked at her.

"I mean that they would know one-another, Gibbs. Then there would not be all of these problems."

"Ziva, you said that Miri did not come for you whilst you were in Israel because of Shmeil. If you had come back to Tony, you would not have been under Shmeil's protection. Caitlin would have been a lot younger and it would have been easier for her to hurt you." Gibbs shook his head. "You staying in Israel kept you safe. Now Caitlin is older, it is easier for her to understand danger."

"Right, so tomorrow when she inevitably asks about her father you can be the one to tell her that, yes?" Ziva smiled.

"If you think it will help." He shrugged.

"Thank you, boss." She nodded, walking over to the staircase and making her way up to bed.

"Ziva, I haven't been your boss in a long time."

"I know." She smiled sadly. "Goodnight, Gibbs."

"Night." He nodded and smiled, laying back on the couch and flicking the lamp off. It was good, having Ziva back. She seemed to wake everybody up. Or maybe that was Caitlin, he couldn't quite tell.


	15. Chapter 15

**Just another short little update.**

"Why do people call you Gibbs?" Caitlin asked as she sat on his desk next to where he was sat in his chair.

"It's my name." He shrugged.

"It's a funny name." her eyes narrowed.

"It's more like me calling you David." He said.

"Then why does nobody call you by your first name?" She asked sceptically.

He laughed and sighed. "My wife didn't like Leroy Jethro when we first met so she called me Gibbs. Kinda stuck." He smiled.

"Did you love her?" She asked innocently, smiling.

"Very much." Gibbs said. It was strange the way that she managed to make anyone talk just by the way she looked at a person. She didn't threaten, just persuaded.

"Then why are you not still married?" She smiled.

"She died." He sighed and her face fell.

"I'm sorry."

"S'okay, it was a long time ago." He smiled.

"Do you know who my father is?" She watched his face. "You do, don't you?"

"Yes." He sighed.

"Please can you tell me?"

"Nope." He shook his head. "Your mother didn't tell you who your father is to keep you safe."

"How?"

"If you had known who your father is then you would have tried to find him sooner. If you had tried to find him, he would have tried to contact you, maybe tried to persuade you and your mother to come back to America before you did. That would mean that the people trying to hurt you and your mum would have had a much easier time." He smiled, standing up.

"Ok, please tell me you did not give my daughter coffee, Gibbs." Ziva said, rounding the corner with McGee and stopping when she saw Caitlin drinking from a disposable coffee cup.

"It's hot chocolate." Gibbs said quietly to Ziva as she walked over. "I talked to her."

"Thank you, Gibbs." She said and he shrugged. She grabbed his arm to stop him from walking away. "I mean it." She said quietly.

"I know." He nodded.

"How do I repay you for it?" She asked.

"You talk to Tony." He said after a short pause.

"Gibbs. He was doing better before I came back."

"No, he wasn't." Gibbs shook his head. "I've had to watch him mope for the past eight years."

"He cleaned the floors?" She frowned.

"Mope, not mop. He wanders around miserably." Gibbs explained.

"Oh." Her frown deepened. "There are many aspects of your language with which I have difficulties."

"Noticed." He laughed. "What ever Tony said, Ziva, probably means something different to how you interpreted it."

"Then he should have said it in a way that I could not have misinterpreted it."

"Tony often doesn't have the best judgement in what he says." Gibbs laughed. "If he did he wouldn't be hit on the head so much."

"I believe you are correct." She smiled faintly. "Although the Tony I knew did not take long to move on."

"Maybe he never had anything worth holding on to? You were certainly something that I didn't expect him to let go of so easily and I was right."

"You always are." She muttered under her breath.

"Remember rule 51, Ziva." He said quietly to her.

"Which one's that? The one about working as a team?"

"Sometimes, you're wrong."


	16. Chapter 16

**Sorry it has been so long, but this is a fairly long chapter to compensate. I have just spent a solid three hours decorating the Christmas tree, so I am in a good mood and I though that now was as good as any time to post this, as I cannot make it any better, no matter how hard I try.**

"Hey." Tony sat next to Ziva in the stairwell.

"Gibbs tell you I was here?"

"Yeah…" He sighed. He pulled the gold chain out of his pocket and dangled it in front of her. "I noticed Caitlin doesn't wear one."

"I received that when I was twelve. It was going to be the same for Caitlin." She nodded.

"She's a good kid." Tony changed the subject after a moment of silence.

"She wants everybody to like her." The corners of Ziva's mouth twitched up in a smile slightly. "It works with adults."

"Not with other kids?" Tony frowned.

"She was fine back in Israel, she had friends. Here everybody laughs at the way she talks. One kid's brother started telling everybody she was a terrorist, Tony." She looked at him, crying. "I just want it to stop, I want her not to have to go through that every day." He pulled her in and held her shaking form as she cried for her daughter. Their daughter.

"It will all sort itself out." He whispered to her, trying to convince himself of it more than anything.

"How?" She looked up at him, tears still rolling down her cheeks.

"I don't know, but I know that it will." He smiled. "Ziva, when we spoke the other day, I think what I said might have been misunderstood."

"You are so sure of that?" She asked, turning away from him as much as she could, sat on a step.

He tilted her face towards him. "Yes. I still need you, Ziva. I still need to see your face every day, to hear your laugh, to hold your hands, I need you more than you can imagine." He looked at her guarded expression. "I have thought about you every single day for the past eight years. I dream about you every night. I prayed every morning that you would come back to me." He brushed her hair away from her face, hesitating slightly, and the kissed her. She stayed still, shocked, allowing him to kiss her for a moment before she began to reciprocate. He was as tender and gentle as she remembered, managing to convey his passion in soft motions. The door opened at the top of the stairs, the slam did not disturb them but the cough from whoever was towering over them did and they both looked up to see Leon smiling at them.

"I presume this is part of the unofficial case that I'm not supposed to know about."

"Um, it depends."

"On what, DiNozzo?"

"I'm not really certain yet, Director." Tony fumbled, standing up. "I hadn't got that far with my thinking."

"Ziva, it's been a while." He nodded. "Congratulations."

"Um, I am not entirely certain why you are congratulating me?" She frowned.

"Your daughter." He smiled. "You've done a good job."

"Thank you." She nodded, the frown not entirely fading.

"Will we be seeing you around here more often now?"

"I…do not know." She watched Tony out of the corner of her eye.

"This isn't a high-school." He pointed between the two of them and walked back up the stairs into the squad room.

"I do not understand…"

"He's referring to our kissing in the stairwell, behaviour reserved mainly for teenagers." Tony explained.

"Oh." She nodded. "In Israel, that would not have been tolerated."

"You're a good mother, you know." Tony watched her blush slightly. "You are, she's turned out beautifully." He brushed his thumb over her chapped lips.

"She's a good girl." She inhaled deeply.

"Do you want to go to dinner tonight?" He asked.

"Um, alright." She nodded, a smile playing on her lips. "Where were you thinking?"

"There's a little Russian place. It's quiet, great food, I know the owner." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "How about it?"

"I have not eaten Russian food in a long time." She smiled.

"You're fine going straight from here?"

"Er, yes. It is not like I have any other clothes that make me more presentable. Caitlin would be going home with Gibbs anyway." They sat silently for a second before Tony leaned in and kissed her once more.

"I do actually have to get some work done if I'm gonna keep my job." He smiled. "I'll see you later."

* * *

"Mother, why are you not coming home with Gibbs?" Caitlin asked as her mother kissed her forehead.

"Because I am going to dinner with Tony." She hugged her daughter.

"Why can I not go with you?" The child pouted.

"Because it is not the kind of dinner that you would enjoy?"

"Chinese food?" She raised her eyebrows and Ziva laughed.

"No. Russian." Ziva turned her around and began plaiting her hair.

"How do you know that I will not enjoy Russian food when I have never tried Russian food?" Caitlin turned around. Her mother sighed and turned her back to the way she was facing, trying to finish her hair.

"It is not the food itself that you will not enjoy. Stand still." She sighed. "It is a dinner for adults."

"I can be an adult." She tried to stand taller.

"Not tonight." Ziva walked around to face the child. "Be good for Gibbs."

"But Mother!" She pleaded.

"No, Caitlin. You will go to bed at your usual time, just like when I go to work, do you understand me?"

"Yes." She nodded sullenly.

"I love you, you know." Ziva whispered.

"I know, Mother." She yawned and Ziva smiled.

"Goodnight, Sweetheart."

"Do not be home too late."

"I will try."

* * *

"Tony, tonight was lovely." She said as they walked back to his car. When he had said a quiet little place he had meant it. They were the only patrons.

"I try." He shrugged, turning to face her. He pushed her hair back and brushed his lips against hers. "Come home with me."

"Tony." She sighed and shook her head. "It is late. And I have to get back to Caitlin."

"I know." He sighed, leaning back against the wall opposite where his car was parked in the street.

"She is probably still awake. She always stays up when I go out to work." She laughed slightly.

"She's a bright girl."

"That would be Shmeil. He liked to teach her things."

"Come on," He smiled, "I'll drive you back to Gibbs'." She nodded slowly at him and climbed into his car. Tony looked across to her when she fell quite. He had pulled up outside Gibbs' house. "Hey." He shook her shoulder to wake her gently. "We're here."

"Hmm?" She blinked and yawned.

"You fell asleep. We're outside."

"Do you want to come and say goodnight to her?" Ziva asked wearily, nodding towards the house.

"That okay with you?"

"Would I offer if it was not?" She looked at him and he tilted his head. "She would like it."

* * *

"I thought I told you to go to sleep." Ziva laughed, walking into the bedroom that Caitlin was staying in.

"And I thought I told you to not be out too late." Caitlin countered, flicking the bedside lamp on.

"Well, I said I would try." She shrugged, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her daughter. "Someone wants to say goodnight to you."

"My father?" The child sat up.

"Tony." Ziva neither confirmed nor denied it. She nodded to the doorway and the man himself walked out of the shadows. Caitlin sighed and fell back, her head hitting the pillow.

"Nice to know my presence is appreciated." He chuckled at her reaction.

"I am going to get ready for sleep." Ziva looked at him and left the room, closing the door to.

"How're you doing?" He asked, sitting in the spot that Ziva had vacated.

"Do you know who my father is?" She asked, narrowing her eyes as he paused. "You do."

"Yeah, I know him." Tony sighed.

"Will you tell me?"

"One day." He tugged the covers up to her chin. "How 'bout a story, huh?"

"You are changing the subject."

"Ok. No story." Tony shrugged, smiling when she sat up.

"Wait. Wait. I want to hear the story. Please."

"Alright." He looked at her. "Not so long ago, in a galaxy not as remote as one might think, there was a crazy ninja. She was trained by the very best in Israel."

"That is where I am from." She interrupted him.

"It sure is. No interruptions. So there was this ninja, and she was crazy, like really crazy. Her hair was wild and she was willing to do anything to complete a mission. Anyway, one day she was sent to America to complete a mission, which she did. However, once she completed it she began to think that she didn't like her job so much. She didn't like the type of missions she was being sent on. But when she completed her mission in America, she met some people who became her friends. They said that she could stay with them for a while whilst she thought about what to do and she did.

"She grew closer to some of those friends, and after ten years they were almost family. But when her real family were killed, she felt hurt, and her friends couldn't help, not even her closest friend. So she ran away, back to where she grew up."

"In Israel?"

"Yeah, in Israel. So she ran back to Israel, and she did her very best to hide, but her closest friend still found her. Hid did his best to convince her to go back to America with him, but no matter what he said she wouldn't go with him. So, he stayed in Israel for a weekend and they pretended for a few days that none of the bad things had happened and everything was happy like it used to be." He paused and shook his head.

"What happened then?" She asked, fixated.

"He went back home and left her there."

"Where is the happy ending? That is not a happy ending." Caitlin pouted.

"Until a week ago I did not think there was a happy ending."

"So there is a happy ending?"

"Well, the ninja had a little baby girl, who grew up to be very clever and very beautiful and very brave."

"What happened then?"

"Well, I don't know." He shrugged and looked at her.

"Then make it up." She smiled.

"Ok, well, I guess, the ninja and her little girl come back to America, and they went and found all of her friends and her very close friend told her that he loved her and he always has."

"And they all lived happily ever after?" His daughter grinned.

"I hope so." He whispered quietly, placing his hand on the top of her head. "Was that a good story?"

"It was sad." She looked at him.

"I'm sorry. Next time I'll try and make it happier." He grinned. "Night-night."

"Goodnight, Tony." She allowed her eyes to droop as he stood up and flicked the light off, walking out into the hall and sliding down the wall to sit next to Ziva.

"You meant that?"

"What?"

"The ending."

"Yeah." He nodded then frowned. "I thought you were going to get ready for bed?"

"I wanted to listen to what you were going to say."

"And you are not sneaky?" He laughed quietly. She looked at him and leaned her head back against the wall.

"Do you want to stay?" She asked. "Please?"

"Ziva, I…" He looked at her face and wrapped his hand around hers. "Alright."

"Thank you." She nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes.

"You're not going to sleep here, are you?"

"Gibbs does not have another bedroom." She sighed.

"Sure he does, I stayed in it once." Tony frowned.

"Not recently though. It is piled full of boxes, you cannot reach the bed." Ziva shrugged. "It is much easier to sleep here in case she has a nightmare anyway."

"She gets nightmares?" He brushed her hair away from her face.

"Mmm." She murmured noncommittally.

"Do you still get nightmares?"

"Not as much." She sighed sleepily. Her eyes closed again and her breathing evened out. Tony shook his head and smiled at her ability to sleep wherever she needed to. "Goodnight, Tony."

"Goodnight, Ziva." He kissed the top of her head as she nestled her head on his shoulder. "Sleep well."


	17. Chapter 17

**So clearly I did not get this uploaded the other night like I said I would in my comment in my other NCIS fiction. Oh, by the way, if you have not checked it out, I** **recommend you do - I am having a lot of fun writing that one. Anyway, I have uploaded this one now. Or will have, when I hit the upload button, which by the time you are reading this will have been done. Anyway, I digress.**

Caitlin narrowed her eyes as she sat at the breakfast table, eating her cornflakes. She wasn't buying it, why would he come back to Gibbs' house just for breakfast? It wasn't that she didn't like Tony, he was funny and he made her mother laugh, but he made her laugh too much. She had a father and she wanted her father to be the one to make her mother laugh, not him. She watched as Tony's hand grazed the back of her mother's. She threw her spoon down and pushed her chair out, running away from the table and down the stairs to the basement. She climbed under the workbench and curled her legs up to the chest and wrapped her arms around them. She heard footsteps on the stairs and shrunk back further into the shadows. The legs of a stool scrapped across the floor and she could hear someone sanding a piece of wood.

"Y'know, your mother says you've never left the table without asking before." Gibbs said after a moment of sanding. Caitlin stayed silent. "I'm wondering why you would after seven years of behaving suddenly start acting out."

"It is not fair!" She pouted, crawling out of the dark crevice that she had hidden herself in.

"Life isn't." He shrugged. "Why'd you think it's so unfair?"

"Tony is stealing my mother!" The child yelled and Gibbs chuckled. "Do not laugh at me!"

"What makes you think Tony is 'stealing' her?"

"He always smiles at her and he always makes her laugh." Caitlin scowled.

"They're friends." He shrugged, placing the box that he was sanding down.

"Does he love her?" She asked, standing straight. Gibbs sighed and shook his head. "I have seen how he looks at her."

"You're observant."

"Mother says that being observant keeps us safe." She looked at him. "You did not answer my question."

"It's not a question for me to answer."

"That means he does." She stared at him. "He does not have a right to love her."

"He's got right to love anyone he wants, Caitlin." Gibbs watched her as she shook her head.

"No. I want my father to love my mother. That is the way it should be."

"He does."

"Who does what?"

"Your father loves your mother."

"Well then, that settles it. Tony is in the way." She folded her arms across her chest, holding her chin up.

"Nope, not that simple." He stood up. "Don't do anything to change how your mother feels about Tony and how he feels about her."

"Why not?"

"Because. You'll regret it." He picked her up and held her in his arms so she was at his eye level. "Trust me."

"Why should I?" She grumbled.

"Because I understand this more than you do." He said, beginning to carry her up the stairs. "Your childish temper tantrums won't get you anywhere that you want to be." She stared at him, not convinced. "Caitlin, just let them be happy."

"But I am not happy." She puffed her cheeks out.

"Your mother has sacrificed a lot for you. More than you are old enough to understand." He sighed and stopped at the top of the stairs, standing in the spot where Ziva had shot her brother. "I know that you don't understand now and you don't even want to, but you have to accept it."

"I do not. You are not my boss."

"No, but I am Tony's and I used to be your mother's. You will not do anything to hurt them in any way. Understood?"

"Yes." She whispered quietly.

* * *

"I am sorry." Ziva said, breaking the silence.

"It's not your fault."

"I just do not understand why she would do that." Ziva looked at Tony.

"She's had a difficult few days." Tony shrugged, wincing as Caitlin's voice drifted up from the basement as she yelled.

"She is never normally like this. I thought I brought her up better." Ziva sighed, embarrassed by her daughter's behaviour.

"You've done a brilliant job of bringing her up." He smiled. "Children do this all the time."

"How would you know Tony?" She looked at him.

"Well, I was a child once, I had many tantrums."

"Once?" Her face broke into a smile.

"I'll have you know that I have matured a lot since I was a child." He fell silent when Caitlin walked through.

"I am sorry for my behaviour." She said quietly.

"That's ok, we all have bad days." Tony smiled. His daughter bowed her head slightly and breathed in, trying to comprehend what to say next.

"Time to get ready for the day." Ziva said, standing up from her chair and walking to the child, their eyes never meeting. They walked side by side up the stairs to Gibbs bathroom in silence, both keeping their view forwards. Ziva took a pile of clean clothes from the washing basket next to the door before closing it and sat down on the side of the bath, next to where her daughter stood at the sink. She watched as Caitlin brushed her teeth, taking the two minutes to figure what needed to be said. The little girl splashed her face with water and began lathering soap onto her small hands. "Do you think I have been a good mother to you?"

She stopped what she was doing and turned to face her mother, lavender smelling soap covering her face. "I think you have." She frowned slightly and rinsed the soapy foam off her cheeks and nose.

"And we have done perfectly fine on our own so far?" She smiled, passing a hand towel over.

"Yes."

"So why are you so intent on finding your father?" She asked, sliding down the side of the tub to sit on the tiled floor.

"Because I want to have a proper family, like everybody else." Caitlin said after a moments thinking, sitting on the floor next to Ziva. She sighed and wrapped her arm around the girl, kissing the top of her head.

"I am sorry I never told you."

"Gibbs said it was to keep us safe."

"He is a very clever man." She laughed.

"Mother, do you love Tony?" Caitlin asked, hiding her face as she pulled a t-shirt over her head so she didn't have to see her mother's reaction.

"Yes." She smiled, leaning her head against the side of the bath.

"But you said you love my father." Her voice cracked, tears dribbling down her cheeks.

"I do." Ziva held her arms out for the child. "Do not cry."

"But you cannot love both Tony and my father." She cried even more. Ziva gathered her child in her arms and rocked her back and forth.

"What if they were one and the same person?" She asked eventually, not ceasing with the rocking. Caitlin sniffed and looked up at her face, puzzled.

"But they cannot be the same person." She frowned and shook her head.

"But they are." Ziva shrugged, brushing her daughters fringe back to look at her face. "You have the same shaped nose as he does." She smiled softly and tapped it, making the child giggle slightly. "And the same laugh."

"Does Tony know that I am his daughter?" She asked, looking up from where she sat in her mother's arms.

"Yes." Her mother smiled.

"Does everybody else know?"

"They guessed." Ziva shrugged and hugged her daughter. They sat silently on the bathroom floor.

"Does he want to be my father?" Caitlin asked nervously after a while.

"Of course he does."

"How can you know?" The child asked sceptically.

"Because I do not know why anybody would not want you to be their daughter." Ziva smiled. "You are perfect."

"Nobody is perfect, mother."

"Well, you are." She laughed. "Come on, finish getting dressed." She handed the cargo pants to her daughter and shook her head when the child jumped to pull them up.

* * *

"Hey, boss, I think I'm gonna head off. I need a shower and I don't have any clean clothes here so I'm just gonna…" Tony said, standing up from the breakfast table and breaking the silence.

"You sure, DiNozzo? I got a shower." Gibbs said.

"Yeah, I think Ziva and Caitlin need some time to talk."

"You're not running away are you, DiNozzo?"

"What? Why would I be running away?" He scoffed, shaking his head.

"You're scared." Gibbs raised his shoulders in a shrug.

"I don't get scared." Tony laughed nervously.

"Sure you don't." Gibbs shook his head as he took the bowls to the sink.

"What's that supposed to mean, boss?"

"I remember when you ran from a building screaming like a girl."

"What…When was that?" He frowned, trying to recall such a moment.

"When I said there was a bomb and you and Kate didn't believe me." Gibbs watched as the realisation dawned in DiNozzo's eyes. "You're running screaming now."

"No, I'm not." He denied Gibbs accusations.

"DiNozzo, at least when Ziva ran she had the dignity to go quietly." Gibbs sighed.

"Quietly? Quietly? Is that what you call disrupting all of our lives?" Tony snapped. He had woken up in a good mood that was now very much gone.

"No, but she didn't make a fuss, she just left."

"That's not fair boss." Tony shook his head. "I'm not about to catch a plane to the Middle East, I'm leaving to take a shower. The situations are completely different."

"Yeah, you're right. When Ziva left she was leaving all her friends. You, you're just leaving your daughter." Gibbs turned his back on his younger colleague and started walking down to his basement. "Think about it, DiNozzo." He called as Tony sat back down in the chair. He looked up when he felt two pairs of eyes on him to see the two females peeking around the side of the stairs.

"You do realise I can see you?" He said, smiling when Caitlin collapsed into a fit of giggles.

"You are leaving?" Ziva asked, walking over.

"I was gonna, but I think I'll stay for a bit longer." He smiled as Caitlin bounded over. "You okay with that?"

"Yes." She smiled shyly, before breaking into a grin and hugging him.

"Hey." He picked her up, holding her so she was at his eyelevel. "What was that for?"

"Because I am glad that you are my father." She smiled.

"Well, it is a good job that I'm glad you're my daughter." He smiled, glancing at Ziva out of the corner of his eye. "You know, I always wanted a daughter."

"You did?" She beamed.

"Yeah. When I first met your mother, a long time ago, we had to pretend to be married."

"Why?" Caitlin asked, her interest piqued as he sat with her on his lap on Gibbs' sofa.

"Tony, I do not think this story is appropriate." She turned away from him to hide her smile.

"I'm only gonna tell the clean parts." He shrugged. "Anyway, we were undercover, 'cos there were these two assassins who had a room booked in the same hotel where there was a big birthday party for all marines."

"Why do all marines have their birthday on the same day?" The child asked.

"Not a birthday party for the marines themselves. A party for the Marine Corps." Gibbs said, leaning against the doorframe and smiling at the image of Tony, Ziva and Caitlin sat on the sofa together. "And it wasn't really a party."

"Can I get on with my story?" Tony sighed, glaring at everyone in the room. They nodded. "So anyway, we were undercover as these married assassins."

"Wait, what happened to the assassins who were booked into the hotel?"

"You missed out the part that they were killed, Tony." Ziva said quietly.

"Oh, right. So they died, and so we had to take their place." He smiled. "Jean-Paul and Sophie Ranier."

"Is that not lying?" Caitlin looked between the three adults sceptically.

"More like playing dress-up." Gibbs shrugged.

"Anyway, so, Abby found out that Sophie was pregnant. She would have had a baby if she had lived."

"Did that mean that you had to pretend to be having a baby?" Caitlin looked at her mother.

"Yes, although I did not think about it as much as Tony seems to have."

"Can I please get on with my story!?" He flung his arms out in frustration as everyone fell silent. "Thank you. So, I had to imagine that your mother was pregnant."

"I told you not to." Ziva muttered quietly.

"I had to work out my state of mind. So anyway, I had to imagine that she was pregnant, and, although it was difficult, I imagined we were gonna have a little baby girl." He smiled and shrugged.

"What would you have called her?"

"I don't know." He tapped his daughter's nose. "I like your name."

"That the end of your story, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

"Er yeah." Tony looked up.

"That one was happier." Caitlin smiled.

"I did try to make it happier." He shrugged.

"DiNozzo, I thought you needed a shower?"

"Er, yeah, boss. You mind if I take one here?" He smiled charmingly as Gibbs rolled his eyes.

"Go on. We're gonna be late." He looked at his watch. "You want me to take you two in now, Tony can catch up later."

"I have a few things to sort out, but you can take Caitlin and I will go in with Tony." Ziva smiled at Gibbs wary look.

"Alright." He shrugged in a Gibbs like manner. "Don't be too long." He picked the child up from where Tony stood her on the wooden floor. "You gonna go get your shoes on?"


	18. Chapter 18

"I know you wanted to tell her yourself, but she was upset and I…"

"Ziva, it's fine." He smiled, wrapping his arms around her.

"No, it is not. You have missed so much and you deserved to have this."

"Ziva, it's fine." Tony shook his head. "When this is all over, you know, the whole revenge seeking death threat killer situation, you are planning on staying, aren't you?"

"When this is over, there will not be anything for me and Caitlin to hide from anymore." She grinned. "If you would like, we can try to be a proper family. Only if that is what you want, of course."

"Sure, we can try." He grinned. "I would love to." He brushed her cheek when her smile faltered.

"You are sure? Because we have done just about fine and if you are not comfortable with this then…" She fell silent as he pressed his lips to hers. "So that is a yes?"

"Yes." He laughed, kissing her again. "I have wanted to do that every day for the past eight years."

"Why did you never just move on? Forget about me?" She asked.

"Same reason Gibbs never really moved on from Shannon. I love you." He shrugged. "Why didn't you?"

"Because I could only ever love you." She shrugged. "Every day. All those years ago, I just wanted you to notice me. I would wake up every morning, trying to remember the dream I had had about you or come up with something funny to say. And every night I would go to bed disappointed."

"You always felt like that?"

"Not until around when Gibbs left for Mexico, but then – yes." She shrugged as he wiped away the tear that was leaking from the corner of her eye.

"What about C.I-Ray and Rivkin?" He grit his teeth as he thought of the nights he spent watching Ziva leave the office to go to see the Mossad officer or CIA agent or any other agent of any other intelligence agency.

"Distractions. I came to realise fairly quickly that there was a very, very low chance of you ever noticing me, much less reciprocating those feelings, and so I resigned myself to having to keep looking. I hoped that my feelings would fade over time."

"But they didn't." He stated, moving her hair back from her face to study her pained expression. "I made it hard for you, didn't I. You kept your emotions to yourself, whilst I openly boasted about every girl I…"

"Yes, thank you, Tony. I quite remember." She cut him off, closing her eyes.

"Why did you try to help me?"

"What?"

"With Jeanne," She flinched almost unperceivably when he said her name, "You offered advice. You tried to help me."

"I did not like to see you with another woman." She tilted her head. "But I did not like it even more to see you hurting."

"Why didn't you say something?" He asked, his heart aching for the pain he put her through.

"I did not want you to turn me down. It was better to not know what would happen and to have hope than to know and be disappointed." She shrugged.

"What if I hadn't turned you down?"

"It was not a possibility. It would never have happened." She shrugged and smiled slightly.

"It would have." He kissed her once more. "I need to go and have a shower."

"Of course." She smiled, masking how heavy her heart felt. She didn't even know why she felt so sad. Maybe it was just bring back old memories.

"Ziva." He said, standing on the bottom step of the stairs. She turned to look at him. "I always noticed you. Every day. Even before Gibbs left."

* * *

"So, you seen any of your friends since you came to visit us?" McGee asked as Caitlin spun on Tony's chair.

"Well, I can see you now, and if I want I can go downstairs and see Abby and Ducky." She shrugged.

"I meant friends from school."

"So you are not my friends?" The chair slowed to a stop and her face fell.

"Well, of course we are, just, I meant people your age."

She paused. "I do not really have any friends my age."

"Well, who do you play with at lunch time?" McGee looked at her.

"I like to play on my own. Everybody makes fun of the way I talk." She sighed expressively. "Sometimes I talk to my teacher, but she is always busy."

"Do you miss Israel, Caitlin?"

"I miss Shmeil." She shrugged. "And I liked the people who Mother worked with. But America is more interesting and I have a father here."

"How do you know your father is still in America? How do you know that he has not moved somewhere else?"

"Because Tony is my father, silly." She smiled and walked over to Tim's desk.

"Er, how do you know?"

"Because Ziva told her, McGee." Gibbs said, walking through. "Tony and Ziva here yet?"

"Not yet. Er, boss?"

"Yes, McGee?"

"Where are Tony and Ziva?" He asked quietly so Caitlin could not hear.

"They had to sort some stuff out." Gibbs shrugged.

"Stuff?" McGee raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"McGee! Just because DiNozzo's not in yet, it doesn't mean we need you to replace him!" Gibbs yelled.

"Yes boss, sorry boss." McGee looked at Gibbs stare, a frown developing before he gasped. "Oh, not sorry. It won't happen again."

"The apology or the interpretation of me?" Tony asked as he walked into the squad room, Ziva trailing behind him.

"Er, both?"

"You say that every time, McGee." Ziva laughed, watching as Tony picked their daughter up.

"Are you, er, do you enjoy working in the restaurant?" McGee asked as he stood behind her.

"It pays well." She shrugged, knowing what he was getting at.

"But do you enjoy working there? Like you enjoyed working here?"

"It is not the same. Here was – is – my family. I cannot change that." She smiled. "And I do not want to."

"So would you ever, you know, want to maybe, um, come back to NCIS?"

"McGee. McGee, McGee, McGee…" She shook her head before turning to look at him. "I do not know. Is that what you want?"

"It's what Tony wants. No one else fits here. I think Gibbs would like you back – even if he won't admit to it." McGee looked around the office. "And we all know what Abby thinks about it."

"How could we not." She chuckled slightly. "Tell me, McGee. I understand why Tony has not moved on, sort of. Gibbs, well, he is Gibbs. But why has nobody else moved on. You and Abby and Ducky. You have had eight years and you have not changed at all."

"We didn't need to change." He shrugged and she frowned, tilting her head to the side slightly as if that would straighten the information out. "Don't worry. It wasn't you leaving that halted our progression." He smiled as her shoulders relaxed slightly.

"I did fear that I had not only ruined Tony's life but everybody else's too."

"You've enhanced Tony's life, Ziva." Tim smiled. "He'd never say that you ruined it."

"If you say so." She nodded slowly, her eyes meeting Tony's across the room. He smiled, and she reciprocated, though in a much smaller gesture.


	19. Chapter 19

**_I am sorry._**

"Uh, I have a package for Ziva David." The young courier stood awkwardly, holding the small parcel in his hands. Ziva walked over and, just before grasping the box, paused and turned to Gibbs.

"Gibbs, how did the sender know I was here?" She swallowed. All three agents stood up from behind their respective desks and walked over.

"Do you know what this is?" Tony asked the courier. He shook his head.

"What is it, Mother?" Caitlin skipped over, her pigtails – in the style of Abby – bouncing as she moved.

"Tony, take Ziva and Caitlin to Autopsy. What ever Ducky is doing, tell him to stop." Gibbs said quietly.

"Er, isn't it safer outside boss?" McGee asked as Tony nodded and followed his orders.

"No. This could just be a way of getting them into the open." Gibbs inspected the package from all angles whilst it still sat in the quivering hands of the perspiring teenager. "Do you know who sent this?" He pointed to it.

"Er, nn…nnn…n..no, sss.. ..sir…" He shook his head again and began blinking rapidly.

"Who asked you to deliver it?"

"Mm..mmm…my bb..b…boss." He stammered. "I…I… j..jj…just d.. do w…w…wwhat I'm t..told."

"McGee, call the bomb squad." Gibbs said as he walked over to his own phone. "You." He pointed at the crying boy. "Stay there. Don't move." He dialled the number for security. "No-one leaves the navy yard. Under any circumstances. Is that understood?" He yelled into his phone before slamming it back onto the cradle. Whatever game it was that Miri was playing, she would not win. He promised himself that silently as he stood waiting. They wouldn't catch her. Not without her being enticed out. She was a poltergeist. Able to slip through the cracks. McGee had traced every known alias, every known hideout, every known contact – but still nothing. He watched as bomb-techs swarmed around the poor kid holding the parcel. She was ruthless, Ziva had told him as much, but just how ruthless – he didn't know. One bomb-tech cautiously removed the box from the courier's hands and transferred it to the empty desk.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Caitlin asked as Tony – her father – grabbed her up and hurried towards the stairs, gripping tightly to her mother's wrist to ensure she was following. Normally her mother would have fought back, Caitlin puzzled. She had seen her mother lash out before when Uncle Shmeil had simply just taken her hand to hold.

"To go and visit Ducky." Tony said breathlessly, taking the steps two at a time. He had let go of Ziva so he could make sure that he didn't drop the child in his arms as they hurried down the multiple stories.

"Why are we running?" She looked to her mother to answer.

"Because we're having a race." Ziva looked at Tony when he answered, nodding at her daughter's uncertain expression.

"Yes. We are having a race to get to Ducky."

"Then why can I not run too?"

"Because you are on Tony's team." Ziva said, her eyes focused back on the steps that their feet were pounding down.

"Why are we not taking the elevator then?"

"Caitlin, honey, can you just be quiet for a moment – until the race is over at least?" Tony looked behind him to check that Ziva was fine before continuing on down. He was certain it never usually to this long to get to Autopsy when walking, let alone running. His heart was pounding in his ears as his feet slammed against the never-ending concrete steps, and he could feel Caitlin's breathing grow sporadic and shaky as she was jostled about in his arms.

"What on Earth is going on…?" Ducky asked, frowning from where he stood at the back entrance into the cold room. Tony and Ziva ran down the last steps and into the stairwell, pushing Ducky through to his 'office' and slamming the door behind them. Tony placed Caitlin down on the floor and both her parents slid down the wall to sit next to one-another whilst they regained their breath. "What's going on?" Ducky repeated, staring at the state of the family in front of him. Tony began making motions and the old pathologist frowned and shook his head.

"Charades." Palmer walked over from the slab with the body laying on it. "Er, a square? A box? Yes, a box. Um, I don't know – Doctor Mallard, I was never very good at charades."

"Mr Palmer, go and cover up our guest." Ducky snapped. He crouched down to Caitlin, who had curled up between her two parents, her eyes wide open and full of fear. "Caitlin, what happened?" His voice softened.

"I was sat drawing a picture and then Gibbs started shouting and Tony picked me up and we ran down here." She whispered quietly, a sound barely registering with Ducky's ears.

"There was a parcel sent to me. Here." Ziva recovered first.

"Parcel as in a bomb?" Jimmy asked as he walked back over.

"Possibly." Tony nodded.

"Then why aren't we evacuating?"

"Because, Palmer, it might not be a bomb. It might just be a way of getting Caitlin and Ziva out of the building. How stable would you say this room is if the building collapses, Ducky?" He asked, his hand reaching over for Ziva's as his daughter leaned into his side.

"I wouldn't like to guess. The fridges are possibly the most stable part of the room, if we could create a shelter of sorts over there," He pointed, "Then we might be safer." They stood and got to work immediately, not knowing how little time could be on the clock. Jimmy and Tony pushed the desk across the room towards the metal cabinets and moved to drag the closest autopsy table over. Whilst they were shifting the heavy metal table, Ducky was handing Ziva a pile of scrubs and a lunchbox.

"Ducky, what are these for?" She frowned at her armful.

"Ziva. If the building does collapse and we are trapped, who knows how long we will be down here. Food, warmth and water." He held up to unopened bottles of water and looked over to Tony and Jimmy's handy-work. They had manage to use the corner of the room, the desk and one of the portable autopsy tables to create a structure with another steel table as a makeshift roof. Tony, after taking a very brief second to admire his workmanship, walked over to the little dark-haired child who had shrunken into the corner.

"Hey."

"We were not just having a race, were we?" She asked quietly and he sighed slightly and shook his head. She was like Gibbs – you just couldn't lie to her, or not for long, anyway.

"No. We weren't. But everything is going to be ok. We are just going to spend some time in that fort that we have built over there." He pointed to the cold metal construction and held his other hand out for her to grasp. "Come on, we're all gonna be ok." He grinned as she placed her tiny hand in his large one and they walked over to were Ducky and Jimmy were handing supplies into where Jimmy was organising them inside. They silently climbed through the small gap that had been left between the two desks and, once they were all inside, Tony tugged the desk closer and closed off the opening. It grew dark and Caitlin whimpered slightly. They sat in the oppressive silence for what felt like a millennia before the sound they had all been anticipating came. The shattering. The cracking. The shuddering tremors that made the walls and floor around them quake. No one moved. No one even breathed. They all sat, their hearts wanting to break out of their chests, huddled together. Even Caitlin stayed silent. No one had anything to say. They had no idea whether their friends, their family, had gotten out of the building safely. They had no clue whether there were any casualties away from the self-constructed bomb-shelter that had withheld around them. They didn't even know what damage had been done.

"The power's out." Jimmy said, peering through a crack between the wall and the desk. Nobody wanted to point out that his comment was really not very helpful.

"You know, this reminds me of a story mother used to tell me about one night during World War Two…" He began, and, for once, nobody objected to his long, drawn out digressions and stories. After all, they didn't know if Ducky wasn't all they had left.


	20. Chapter 20

**It was not until I was rereading this specific chapter that I realised how dark a place my mind actually is. I do apologise now. If you do not want to read it then by all means, do not. Oh, and one comment about how the bomb would avoid all detection – I was going with artistic licence to get me out of explaining that, seeing as that was the idea I had wanted to go with and had no real way around its problems.**

The office was silent. Empty. The whole building was. Except for Gibbs, the two bomb techs and the five people in Autopsy. "Agent Gibbs, the bomb is armed, with a system that I have never seen before. I would not know where to start. We have to leave. Now." Gibbs heard the words but didn't register them as he stared emptily at his desk. "There isn't time for this." The tech sighed and shook his head as Gibbs opened the drawer in his desk, pulled one item out, walked to McGee's desk, pulled another item out, and repeated the action with DiNozzo's desk as well, before nodding to the two techs and walking to the stairs, taking one last look at the hideous orange walls and blue carpet. They hurried down the steps, to the empty foyer, out of the doors and across the grass to the safety area just as the explosives detonated. Gibbs stared at his office. He dropped to the grass, sitting and sighing at his life, destroyed. Abby and Tim walked over and sat down next to him, and, one by one, others joined them in silence, sitting and looking at the destruction they had witnessed.

"Do you think they're ok?" Abby asked, voicing Gibbs fears.

"Don't know." He watched as firemen began to tackle the flames that were rising from the building, now resembling a pile of rubble more than anything. He stood up and McGee followed. "We need to find them."

"On it, boss." Tim said, determined to find his friends. Gibbs looked at him for a second.

"Thank you, Tim." He nodded. The younger agent just stared back.

"Don't thank me yet. Only once they're found." He stood tall and Gibbs smiled slightly.

"Then let's find them."

* * *

"So Mother says 'Well they don't have very good aim, do they?'" Ducky laughed as his story finished. "Imagine that!"

"I'm trying, Doctor Mallard, I'm just struggling to grasp the idea of your mother running through the night in just her underwear." Jimmy frowned.

"Well, Mr Palmer, it was an air-raid. It was not as if she could put any more clothes than what she was wearing on. We should all just be grateful that this was before she started sleeping in the nude." He chuckled again. Caitlin had fallen asleep on Tony's lap and, after ducky's story they all lapsed back into silence. Someone gasped slightly as the rubble started shifting outside of their shelter and Gibbs voice drifted through.

"Ziva, where are you? Ziva?" She looked at the other dark forms before pushing the desk out with all of her might, creating a hole just big enough for her slender form to fit through. "Ziva? Ziva, please pick up." The voice garbled slightly as the beam of a torch blinded her. A laugh cut through the heavy, dust-laden air. She recognised the malice in a second, the cold, pure evil of the pleasure.

"A case of mistaken identity." Miri laughed. "I knew that it would be easy to coax you out, but I really thought that you would have taken a bit more that an old hijacked telephone call." She held up the voice recorder that was still talking and dropped it, letting the machine die.

"How did you know I would be down here?" Ziva asked, inching away from her friends.

"I bugged the bomb. That is probably why nobody could disarm it." She shrugged. "I did think they would be slightly more skilled than that, I did not intend to blow the building up, I just needed the threat to be real."

"Where is your torture chamber? Just take me there." Ziva removed all emotion from her voice.

"No, no, no, no. Ziva, you know that is not how I play. You never liked my way of doing things, no. I want to talk first. Particularly with a certain little girl and her father." She grinned and flashed the torch over to where Ziva's family hid in silence. "Caitlin, are you awake?" Silence. "How about you, Tony? Sorry, by the way. I believe you left your desk in such a rush, those lovely pictures of Ziva are now rather burnt. And, of course, you are not armed, are you."

"What do you want?" He yelled, moving towards the exit of their hiding hole.

"Tony, stay where you are. Please." Ziva sighed and glared at the woman in front of her.

"I would take heed of Ziva's advice." Miri laughed again. "But, I will answer your question. I want Ziva to hurt."

"No!" Caitlin began to cry.

"Ah, Caitlin. Did you have a nice sleep?" She grinned at Ziva.

"Leave her alone. Leave everyone else alone. You can do what ever you want with me, just leave her alone."

"But I want to play, Ziva." She laughed.

"We are not playing." Ziva replied as the flashlight returned to her face.

"Oh, but you are." She removed a knife from her pocket and strolled forwards, not hindered by the fallen bricks and tiles and glass. "I wonder, do you truly love him?"

"No." Ziva shook her head. "I have moved on."

"DO NOT LIE!" She barked in her prey's face. They were just inches apart. "The last thing they remember of you should not be a lie."

"You know my answer already then. You do not need me to say how much I love him."

"I want the satisfaction. I want to know if it will be worth it, taking them away from you. I want to know if you will suffer the pain I did when you killed my love before you die." She raised her shoulders slightly in a shrug. "They tortured him and then they executed him. Your mother has done some terrible, terrible things, Caitlin."

"Leave my mother alone!"

"She has such a beautiful voice. It will be such a shame for no-one to be able to hear it again." Another laugh. "I cannot do that, Caitlin. Your mother killed the man I loved."

"I did not. He was a terrorist." She hissed in her torturers ear, antagonising her more.

"And what about your brother Ari. You shot him. Because your father told you to."

"Ari was a traitor. I would never have gone through with it had he been innocent."

"You have killed so many, Ziva. You deserve to feel their pain." She pressed the cold metal blade to Ziva's throat. "Do not flinch. I do not want to kill you right away. Caitlin, why do you not come out here, we can play a game. You too Tony."

"No, stay where you are." Ziva said. "They do not need to see this."

"Oh, but they will hear it. I was trying to be kind, kill the child first so she does not have to see her mother suffer. But if you insist, why do we not start with Doctor Mallard instead. Oh, Ducky, come out, come out, wherever you are?" She called.

"No." Tony said. "Leave Ducky and Palmer. They're innocent." He began to squeeze through the hole in the shelter.

"Tony, stay with Caitlin. She needs her father." Ziva said. "I am tired of playing, Miri. Just kill me and leave. Revenge does not solve anything."

"How many times have you sought revenge? Too many times to count." Miri sighed, exasperated. She began drawing patterns with the knife along Ziva's collarbone. The blood dribbled down slowly as she grimaced in pain. "It is alright to cry."

"I will not give you the satisfaction." She bit her lip as the vines of the flower being drawn began to trail across the top of her chest.

"Shame. I was going to take pity on them, if you cried. Kill them faster."

"Just leave them. Please." Tears began to slip slowly down Ziva's cheeks and mingle with the red blood that clung to her skin and shirt.

"Better." Miri stopped her carving for a second to touch the rivers of moisture trickling from Ziva's eyes. They fluttered closed and her face contorted as Miri began retracing the scar along her stomach with the knife and her attacker's grin widened. "Is the physical or emotional pain worse right now, I wonder?" She pushed Ziva's body, which was growing increasingly limp, against the wall to keep her upright. "Oh, do not give up now. You have done _so_ well. I am sure Eli would be very proud." She cackled. Ziva just moaned, angering Miri. "I told you not to give up!" She yelled. "Come on!" She let Ziva drop to the floor, hitting the wall in frustration. "Tony, bring Caitlin out now and I might consider sparing the lives of Doctor Mallard and Jimmy Palmer."

"I have been building up a psychological profile of her whilst we've been sat here and firmly believe that she will not be leaving any survivors." Ducky whispered.

"I sort of came to the same conclusion." Tony hissed. "Ziva, can you hear me?" He called out. A soft murmur came from outside, followed by a slightly louder grunt as Miri's boot connected with Ziva's stomach. Tony's grip tightened on the child as she buried herself further into his arms. He swallowed and resigned himself to his fate, just as a single shot resonated around the room. Caitlin's breathing spiked and she started shaking.

"Ziva!" He could hear multiple footsteps hurrying over and Gibbs yelling.

"Tony?" McGee's voice moved closer.

"Probie? That you?"

"No, it's the Easter bunny." Tim, along with the help of various rescue team members, tore apart the construct that had protected them.

"What took you so long?" Tony asked, lifting his daughter up and looking over to a crowd of paramedics.

"We weren't allowed into the building with no proof of life."

"How'd you get it?" Ducky asked, looking at the ruins of his lab.

"We didn't, Gibbs just threatened everyone until someone let us pass." Tim said, following Tony's gaze to Ziva, Gibbs and the paramedics. "Come on, Tony."

"I'm not going without her." His eyes met Gibbs' and the older man walked over.

"She's gonna be fine, Tony. We need to get you and Caitlin to the hospital."

"I'm fine, boss. I'm not leaving Ziva."

"Then go with Caitlin. There's an ambulance waiting topside. Go." He looked at his senior field agent and sighed. "I'll stay."

"Thank you, Gibbs." Tony nodded and resigned as Caitlin started crying, his eyes scanning the room and catching on Miri's body. "She didn't have a chance of getting out, did she."

"And she knew it. She wasn't planning on leaving." Gibbs shook his head. She had smiled at him. When he shot her, she smiled.

* * *

"She lost a large amount of blood, and her organs are bruised, but she'll be alright." Tony said to Gibbs and McGee as they all stood at the foot of the sleeping woman's bed. "Or so the doctors tell me." He smiled slightly at their expressions and the slap to the back of the head.

"Caitlin?" Tim asked.

"In the next room along. They did have her in the children's ward, but her nightmares were keeping the other kids awake. They suggested it might be easier for her to be in the room next door." Tony said quietly. "She'll have nightmares about yesterday for the rest of her life." He shook his head and closed his eyes, the men either side of him each placing a hand on his shoulders.

"She'll be okay, Tony. They both will." Gibbs murmured.

"How's everyone else?"

"Jimmy and Ducky are fine, they're being discharged this afternoon. Abby is holding a funeral for Major Mass Spec tomorrow, everyone is invited." Tony raised his eyebrows at McGee and Tim just shrugged. "Abby. It's her way of coping."

"I got this for you." Gibbs handed Tony his stapler and an envelope. "I thought you'd want to keep those."

"Thanks boss." Tony smiled at the stapler and opened the envelope, slipping out the photos of Ziva that he kept in his desk drawer.

"You're welcome." Gibbs nodded. "Gonna go see Caitlin."

"Yeah, ok." Tony looked to Tim. "So, he save you anything?"

"Yeah, er, the bottle of superglue I hid from you…"


	21. Chapter 21

**Alas, the end is nigh. I have to say I have had fun writing this. I do hope that you have gotten equal or even maybe more enjoyment out of reading it. I have drafted up one or two one-shots that continue the tales of this family, but they will probably be uploaded separately, seeing as they will not be in chronological order.**

"How're you doing?" Tim asked, leaning his arms on the banister of the balcony next to her.

"I am doing fine." She flicked her eyes to the French window into the SecNav's house, wondering what was going on in there.

"It'll all sort itself out eventually."

"I know." She looked out across the lawn.

"So, you think anymore about that thing I asked you about?"

"About me coming back to NCIS?" She pursed her lips and gazed emptily at the tree she had climbed a good many years ago when the ICE agent was killed. "I have missed it here. I have missed you, and Gibbs, and Tony, and Abby and Ducky. I have missed you all." She moved backwards and slipped down the wall to sit down. "But I have a daughter, too, McGee."

"I don't follow." He frowned, still leaning on the banister.

"Working here helped me to grow, and I loved it here. I never really minded the late nights and the weekends and the travel, I actually enjoyed it sometimes. But with Caitlin now… My father never spent much time with me as a child – I do not want to make the same mistake. If that means not doing the work that I love then that is how it has to be. I will be getting something better out of it. And I need to be there for her."

"But you are staying in DC?" He asked, trying to understand her motives and only really grasping the edge of it.

"Part of me wants to go back to Israel. Part of me wants to take Caitlin traveling, show her the world." She sighed and shook her head. "But I have to think what is best for my child, and I would do anything for her."

"So you're staying?"

"If that is what Caitlin wants, and what Tony wants, then yes." She smiled slightly. "I left NCIS for a reason, McGee. I did not want to kill anymore." Her voice grew quiet. "I am happier now, I have something to live for; I do not want to start again." She shook her head.

"The team needs you, Ziva." McGee said and she laughed.

"No. No, you do not need me, you need to move on – find someone who you can work with. If I am staying in Washington, then I can come and visit whenever. We can all spend birthdays together and we can go for lunch together." She smiled. "Besides, I do not think the team dynamo that we used to have would be the same."

"Team dynamic." McGee laughed and Ziva joined in.

"Yes, that as well."

"What about you and Tony?"

"I love him more than anything in the world, McGee. Do you know what that is like?"

"No." He shook his head. "Sometimes I think I might, but then I realise that I'm wrong."

"How's Caitlin doing?" He asked, looking over when she sighed.

"Her nightmares are worse. She does not like to be alone. I have barely seen her smile." Ziva rubbed her forehead. "She is with Abby now."

"Wise idea?"

"She wanted to go and see Abby. I cannot see how it will do any more harm."

"Where are you going to be living?"

"Caitlin does not want to go back to our old apartment, not after we were shot at there."

"Tony's place?"

"Maybe." She nodded and the glass door opened. Tony and Gibbs stepped out into the sunlight.

"You shouldn't be sat on the floor like that." Tony held out his hand.

"Three weeks is plenty of time to heal. I am fine." She shrugged. "Besides, I have only seen the sunlight out of a hospital window for almost a month now, I want to sit in the fresh air."

"Alright. Just this once." He smiled slightly. "We're done, we can go home."

"Caitlin is in Abby's temporary lab, can we pick her up now?" Ziva asked as they walked through the Secretary of the Navy's lavish home.

"No need. We're not going home." Gibbs shrugged and directed them to the opposite end of the building.

"Well where are we going then, boss?" Tim frowned, his face splitting into a grin when he saw Abby and Caitlin waving from a helicopter.

"The beach." Gibbs smiled, watching his family climb into the helicopter and taking their seats. Yeah, it would take some time, but they were gonna get there in the end, and when they did, well, who knew where they would go next.

X fini X


End file.
